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HAROLD

AN EXPERIMENT

OF Q°*G*r

NOV 16 W- ! Jj

New York and London
THE GLOBE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1891

?Z3

NY*""**

COPTRISHTED. 1891. BT BECKLES WlLLSON.

0

sb

"Educate him if you wish him to feel his degra-
dation ; educate him if you wish to stimulate his
craving for what he must never enjoy ; educate him
if you would imitate the barbarity of that Celtic
tyrant who fed his prisoners on salted food until
they eagerly called for drink, and then let down an
empty cup into the dungeon and left them to die of
thirst ' ' — {Macaulav.

1

EAEOLD.

CHAPTER I.

11 Nor think them right :
But hold it thus a prophecy,
Who frees the slave, enslaves the free."

— COLEEIDGE.

London. Hot. Midday. Piccadilly and Regent
Street bustle with vehicles and pedestrians.

Brummels' Lane is situate precisely in the heart of
the British metropolis. It is a little thoroughfare that
looks invitingly cool, but so unconscionably obscure
that, apart from its denizens, it is doubtful whether
Brummels' Lane is ever penetrated save by an occa-
sional cabman and certain sad-eyed individuals not
unremotely connected with tailors' bills.

Click. Clack. A carriage turns the corner of
Westumberland Street. The hoofs of the horses
make a fine metallic echo on the cobble-stones. An
open carriage, and — shades of the fascinating Beau
himself ! — a coronet emblazoned on the panels.

Two persons are seated in this irreproachable equi-
page, who appear, upon further inspection, to extract
an enormous amount of interest from their surround-
ings as they are being whirled along.

Carriage suddenly stopping, footman gets down and

6

HAROLD,

scrutinizes the numbers of the various dwellings com-
posing the eastern extremity of Brummels' Lane.
" Twenty-nine ?"

" Ah ! he has found it," murmurs my lady.

" Pope's Inn?" Correct.

"Charles!"

" Yes, your ladyship ?"

" Ring and ask the porter if Mr. Inigo Bright is at
home."

Flunkey obeys orders grimly. One — two — three
minutes elapse. Odd — -very. Is"o porter appears.
Wait an hour, a day, a month, a year ; you will be sin-
gularly adroit if you meet with better success. Pope's
Inn is guiltless of porters.

Five minutes. Manifest impatience in region of
carriage.

" Charles !"

" Yes, your ladyship?"

" Ascend the stairs and find out Mr. Bright's
chambers. Knock and inform his servant — he has a
servant, hasn't he, dear — What ! Charles, knock and
inform Mr. Bright that Lord Middleton and Lady
May Dubersly are below and would be delighted if he
could join them. "

Footman, with a respectful nod, takes himself off.

"Do you think the drive has done you good,
Henry ?" continues the fair speaker. " The air here
is very cool."

The other occupant of the carriage permits a wan
sort of smile to suffuse his features. He moves his
head forward slightly, and reaching for his compan-
ion's disengaged hand, kisses it.

HAROLD.

" You are a good girl, May," he says, at length.
" I don't deserve it. Yes, of course I feel much
better, dear. I do hope Bright can spend the day
with us. But perhaps, after all, he is out of town."

Here the footman returns and delivers his message
formally, after the manner of flunkeys to the nobility.
Compliments of gentleman upstairs ; disliked to keep
his friends waiting a single minute. Furthermore,
would be ready to enter the carriage, punctually, in
five, during which delay gentleman upstairs trusted
his lordship would permit his lordship's coachman to
drive them round into the square, by way of diver-
sion.

(u A cool one — damned if 'e ain't," vigorously as-
severated his lordship's footman, an hour or so later.
" Found 'im drinking coffee in bed an' perusink the
Times. 'E made me 'and 'im 'is trousers and arsked
me — arsked me, partickerly polite, if 1 wouldn't
black 'is boots for 'im. Earls in garrets ! damn my
eyes !"

In five minutes the carriage has returned, and a
young gentleman who has been waiting on the pave-
ment is taken up. The ceremony is attended with a
warmth^ of salutation edifying, in the extreme, to an
outsider. That these two young men are positively
attached to each other is evident before the equipage
has rattled out of Brummels' Lane into the light and
sultriness of "Westumberland Street. The newcomer
has a look of distinction, being thin, pale, broad-
chested, with a fibrous stock of sable hair. Lady
May Dubersly has already addressed him as Mr. Inigo
Bright.

8

HAROLD.

"I was sorry you didn't come yesterday," begins
his lordship.

" 1 didn't leave the Times office once in twenty-
eight hours," explains the other.

" Really, old fellow, I am delighted to hear you
are so epris with your work. Is anything up ?"

" Anything, my dear Henry ? Have you read your
newspaper to-day ?"

" No ; first, because I was not in the mood, and
because Sis was too busy dressing to read it to me.
But tell me, what has happened ?"

" Everything. The Americans have decided to
make war in earnest."

" Make war in earnest!" interrupts Lady May.
" Mr. Bright, you really ought to be ashamed to
talk in that way. It is wicked."

" In earnest ! How ?"

" President Lincoln having decided to free the
slaves, signed a proclamation to that effect yesterday."

There was silence for a moment.

" A mistake — a blunder !" muttered the invalid.

" 1 beg your pardon, Henry ?" says Inigo Bright.

" A monumental blunder," repeats the young aris-
tocrat, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice and look.

" Dear, dear !" breaks in Lady May with a dis-
tressing moue, " will you two never get weary dis-
cussing theories and abstracts ?"

" Who is discussing theories and abstracts ?" says
her brother, smiling.

" Oh, well, whatever you call it. Politics, politics,
politics."

" It's a relief from commonplaces about the weather

HAROLD.

9

and the crops certainly/ ' says Henry Middleton,
changing front good-humoredly.

" Tut, tut, dear ! Tou know argument always
leaves you weak."

"A doctor's fallacy," suggests Inigo Bright.
u Argument is good for your worthy brother's com-
plaint. It occupies his miud and keeps him from
becoming hypochondriacal."

" You are such an oracle, Mr. Bright."

" Not a complete one, I'm afraid," returns Mr.
Bright, modestly. " For instance, 1 would not like
to say whether the new crinoline Mrs. Cholmondeley
brought out last month will secure vogue this fall."

" Well, of all — !" exclaims Lady May, giving vent
to a hearty laugh. " Perhaps you can tell me how-
long we are to wear chignons and — and whether we
can lay aside our hoops next winter or not ?"

# # X «5f #

And as they talk the coachman suddenly pulls up
his horses before Lord Middleton's London house in
Caermarthen Square.

CHAPTER II.

"A clever dog on his wits." — Scott.

Lnigo Bright was the rising hope of that small and
select politico-literary circle — the cognoscenti of Lon-
don. He had already been marked for distinction.
He was, to be more precise, twenty-six and a journal-
ist. Naturally the mass of Londoners knew nothing
of the man, but by his own sect Bright was regarded
with a species of awe, curiosity, and admiration, to
which, there is but little doubt, his extreme youth
weightily contributed. Inigo Bright was no mere
genius, at least no genius in fancy. What he knew,
he knew, as the saying goes, and it would be hard
to say which his associates most envied, his luck
in being able to fasten upon knowledge or his capac-
ity, having secured it, of retaining and arranging it.
His broad familiarity with foreign affairs, his pre-
cocious foresight where political issues were concerned,
his brilliant style, his prodigious capacity for work,
his talent for directorship — these were the young
man's virtues. As for his vices — none knew ; he
kept himself in the background too much. Perhaps
they were his vices, too ; he kept himself in the back-
ground too much, and yet not enough to be exempt
from charges grounded in malice.

" Cynic," said the rising young Flabbershare of the
Morning Post.

HAROLD,

11

Albeit half of his colleagues were a little afraid of
him.

" Morbid recluse," observed the sub-editor of the
Telegraph.

" Egotist," said another.

Brutus of the Critic merely tapped his temples
significantly.

*3£ "ft *5£ 45" *X~

" He is a very great and wonderful man !"

Ha ! It was little Coleridge Wrexham who spake.
Coleridge is only a Parliamentary reporter, you know,
but ambitious. He is an admirist, perhaps by tem-
perament.

" They said all that demned rot of young Pitt and
young Napoleon," he added.

Evidently little Coleridge is a person of perspicacity.

These comments at the Town Club one evening in
J anuary.

CHAPTER III.

" It is a prodigious task to lift an individual or a class from bar-
barism to enlightenment and keep him there. The tendency is
to relapse." — Hon. Senator Ingalls.

Lord Middleton was lunching in Devonshire a
couple of weeks after the conversation with which
the present volume opens. Thither, to his country-
seat, he had dragged off Bright, away from the
latter' s arduous London work, to give him, as he
expressed it, a " morsel of fresh air" and a " bit of
landscape recreation."

During the first short chats here of the two college
friends Lady May Dubersly, his lordship's sister, was
invariably present. Now, no one, it is certain, could
be more agreeable than the London journalist when
he wished to be. In spite of his pallor and ascetic
appearance, he never showed the versatility or the rare
talents he possessed to better effect than in the pres-
ence of women. A smile he had that was singularly
winning. Deficient in what is strictly called humor,
Inigo Bright, on the other hand, never permitted him-
self to be hopelessly erudite in his talk. It was a way
he had as a young man of never letting his auditors
know from his words to what depth, intensity, and
completeness he was master of the subject in hand.

Lord Middleton was a generous and rather witty

HAROLD.

13

young nobleman, who often for weeks at a time never
knew a moment's release from physical pain, and whose
chief manner of spending the immense wealth derived
from his estates was upon his doctors. To 'their shame
be it said, they never fully succeeded in finding out*
what was the matter with him.

Lord Middleton and Bright tried at first to keep
their pet theme of politics out of their talk, the one
because he feared it would not interest the young
lady, and his lordship, perhaps, because he was afraid
he could never, from inherent instinct, agree with his
brilliant friend. To-day the three had lunch spread
for them on the lawn by the side of a miniature lake,
and Lord Middleton told some funny stories he had
heard about the Congo, and asked Bright if they were
true. It was a warm, delicious afternoon, and Lady
May was presently called to the house by a visit from
an adjacent nobleman's lady.

" Pardon me, my dear friend," broke in Middleton,
suddenly, " but I think I have chanced upon a great
secret of yours. It came out in our talk at Caermar-
then Square the other day. The idea that it really is
a secret and one you don't care to confide in me haunts
me like a troop of Oxford creditors."

" Indeed," said his comrade, shortly.

"Now, my dear fellow, don't be angry ; but you
alluded to an experiment in our talk with that Ameri-
can the other day — an experiment you should like
to see made with regard to the blackamoor race in
general. Confess that it is your intention, at least
your desire to make that experiment yourself."

The pale brow of Inigo Bright flushed with sudden

14

HAROLD.

animation. It was with difficulty that he restrained an
impulsive movement.

" It has been my hope for years, " he said at length,
very quietly.

' "It would be a great anthropological experiment
of course," pursued Lord Henry. "It would prove,
I suppose, whether or not a savage is capable of gen-
uine refinement ; whether the 6 thoughts of man are
widened with the process of the sims,' or — let us
hunt for an epigram — whether the cannibal can bound
in a single span into the chair of the savant."

The other said nothing. Lady May returned pres-
ently, and this highly interesting discussion wandered
off momentarily into new fields.

" See here, Inigo," the young nobleman took occa-
sion to say the next day, apropos of nothing, " why
can't we make such an experiment ? Ha, ha ! I know
it sounds rather abrupt, but the fact is, I've been
thinking about it all night. I say we, not because
the credit of the thing, if there is any in the end,
would belong to me or indeed not wholly to you, but
because the enterprise would take money, and that at
least I've got."

" Suppose," pursued his lordship, " we were to get
a little brat of a blackamoor and give him all the ad-
vantages of Stuart Mill and Lord Chesterfield com-
bined. That is the way I understand the idea. Is it
not ? We are young and, by Jove ! the thing is
practicable. Eh, Inigo \ Why don't you answer ?"
he added, almost vehemently.

In truth, his companion had remained perfectly still
for a full minute, looking straight ahead into the

HAROLD.

15

shadow of the great hedges which divided the estate.
It was not hard to divine his feelings. In a word,
this was the pet project of his youth. To yield it up
even to his best friend staggered him for the moment.

In the first tumult of his thought, it seemed to him as
if he were about to relinquish a prize that he had picked
up as he roamed, thinking and dreaming, over the
better part of two hemispheres. But, then, now that
his London work had been opened to him, was it not
impracticable, and did it not, besides, lose half its in-
terest alongside of the greater task he had already set
himself. Again, was the whole idea merely an amuse-
ment, an interesting diversion, this uprooting of a
being of an opposite clime and transporting him as a
botanist would an exotic ?

" I fancy I looked at the experiment a little too
seriously," he said to himself. " Besides , I can t
afford to ride hobbies now P*

" Do" you think it would interest you, this mad-
man's caprice?" he asked aloud — "that is, enough
to make the requisite sacrifices ?"

"What sacrifices?" asked his friend, lightly — ■
i 4 pecuniary, moral, or intellectual ?"

" Pecuniary, of course. Some money is needed
to 4 gild the straitened forehead of the fool ;' a
good deal ought to be necessary to idealize the
brute."

" Yes ; very often it is a golden millstone about a
man's neck to stifle ambition and drag down Promise
from her temple," said Lord Middleton, poetically ;
" but at present I am in need of amusement. If 1
get no worse for the next few years it will afford me

16

HAROLD.

a stimulus. You see, I shall make it my hobby. I
doubt, though, to be thoroughly frank, whether I
shall get any intellectual pleasure out of it. Say, if
you like, that I am wholly impelled by a woman's
curiosity. Let me send for Holland, and we will talk
it all over. Eh? Shall we ?"

* ■* * # * #

" Gad ! it's all like a story out of the 6 Arabian
Nights,' " said Lord Middleton, a few nights later on
his pillow. " I say, Taylor, Taylor !"

Taylor was a brown-haired young man of starched
aspect and mild demeanor, who continually attended
the noble invalid. He rose sleepily up from a lounge
at the other end of the apartment.

" Tes, your lordship," he said, clearing his throat.

" Was it Christopher Sly, the tinker, or — or — "

" Hodges, the grocer," suggested the valet, respect-
fully.

" Tut, tut ! ]N"o. 1 mean the person in the book
who is like Inigo Bright' s Experiment — the — "

" Oh, yes," said Taylor, intelligently. 4i The—"

" Taylor," observed his lordship, slowly and with
emphasis, " you are a distinct ass."

This was quite a new appellation. The valet pon-
dered over it. Lord Middleton slept.

CHAPTER IV.

" O fit, my lord, fit, humbly fit !"

— Mablowe.

There lived, at this time, in a London suburb, a
little, old solicitor who had once held the honorable
post of confidential secretary and legal adviser to the
late Arthur Dubersly, Marquis of Middleton, dur-
ing that distinguished gentleman's Parliamentary ca-
reer. He had ever since received a retainer from the
heir.

But it is still a proverb that the Duberslys never
went into the courts, and it followed that the present
office of legal adviser was an easy tenure.

John Holland, the family solicitor, was a man of
combined humility, high sagacity, and unquestioned
probity. Being a bachelor, the old baronet used to
say that nothing prevented his retainer's rise in the
world but his extreme honesty and insufferable con-
tentment. He looked sixty-five, but was nearly ten
years younger, in point of fact. Holland was neither
crabbed nor dried in countenance ; his face was that
of a wall, especially in repose, which is tantamount to
saying always. His mind and body were vigorous.
His heart was as guileless as a child's.

This was the man whom the nobleman and the
rising journalist agreed upon as their missionary to

18

HAROLD.

the Dark Continent. The story of that mission, shed-
ding so great a light as it does upon the motives and
moral of this book, is best made known to the world
in the garrulous barrister's own words, recorded in
the next chapter.

CHAPTER Y.

john Holland's narrative.

" Come on, you thick-lipped brat, I'll bear you hence,
For it is you that puts us to cur shifts."

— Titus Andronicus.

According to the instructions given me by your
lordship, I shall now endeavor to set forth an exact
account of all that transpired during my recent ex-
traordinary mission to Senegambia, up to my return.
I may preface my story by observing that such a
mission at my time of life was a great surprise to me,
and that although I appeared tranquil to my friends,
my heart beat like a boy's at the prospect of adven-
ture.

I had decided to sail on the 12th of September,
having made arrangements with the captain of a vessel
bound for Sierra Leone and Cape Town to stop at
Bissagos, islands some three hundred miles north
along the coast, and from whence I was assured I could
procure a boat for the mainland. On the 7th I gave
notice to my landlady that 1 should, in all proba-
bility, vacate my rooms for several months, in conse-
quence of an urgent call which I had just then re-
ceived. She seemed much shocked, for your lordship
must know I have been a steady occupant of my lodg-
ings at Hammersmith for nearly nineteen years. Pre-

20

HAROLD.

vious to that I had resided in a street in Westminster
with a German family, the head of which cut his
throat one morning, owing to a failure of the hop
harvest. Herr Spitz's wife was a pleasant little
woman. I never shall forget her entrance into my
chamber, shortly after the tragedy, to inform me of it.
She said her husband had long been out of his right
mind, but seemed to be chiefly fearful as to whether
1 would continue to lodge with her after what had
transpired. I was much shocked, and assured her it
would not make the slightest difference, which, indeed,
I did not think it would at the time. But I had not
reckoned with my friends. My landlady was good-
looking, of a tidy and affectionate nature, and had a
little boy. The barristers at court began to laugh ;
even the judge winked at me upon occasions when ask-
ing after my health. Finally, some one saluted me in
open court as Pickwick, and inquired after the health
of Mrs. Bardell. " Bemember me to Mrs. B./3 said the
wag, " and don't forget the little boy !" Whereupon
the whole bar was convulsed with laughter, and I deter-
mined to leave mv lodgings and seek others elsewhere.

I was just as fortunate in my Dew location,
besides being away from the smoke and noise of
the city. Mrs. Hope Walworth, my new landlady,
did everything possible to render my surroundings
comfortable, and I in turn took great interest in the
education and welfare of her two daughters. She
also was a widow, who had lost her husband after a
wedded life lasting less than three years, and she ever
continued inconsolable. She never appeared to worry
over trivialities, and has constantly carried herself, dur-

HAROLD.

21

ing the nineteen years 1 have known her, as though a
great weight lay at her heart ; which, indeed, it did
without doubt, for I am quite sure she loved her hus-
band extremely.

As I have already said, before commencing to
digress, Mrs. Walworth seemed much shocked at the
news. She was afraid that I really intended to leave
her, being dissatisfied, and that this excuse of mine
served merely to delay and alleviate the announce-
ment. I hastened, therefore, to inform her that I
had resolved, no matter how long my absence might
be protracted, to continue my usual monthly stipend
of rent, and desired that she would see fit to have my
lodgings temporarily occupied against my return.
This was likewise in accordance with your lordship's
suggestion. She was quite touched, and with much
consideration refrained from questioning concerning
the motives or destination of my journey. Her
daughters, Maud and Constance, were outwardly
much more affected, and came down to supper in
tears. The other lodger, a Mr. Routledge, a musician
of no mean ability, and who had resided there over
seven years, was also much distressed to see me go.
I told him I should be back before he had begun to
miss the games of whist with which we were accus-
tomed to regale ourselves on winter evenings with the
ladies. He grasped my hand and warmly replied
that he hoped 1 would. A gloom appeared to rest
upon the entire household for the remainder of the
evening.

■ I then began to realize for the first time the con-
sequence of the trust your lordship had imposed

22

HAKOLD.

upon me. As a boy I had yearned to travel to dis-
tant countries and see strange faces. I seized upon
the law because my father intended me for the cloth,
but I well knew that 1 was never intended by nature,
either in temperament or capacity, for a barrister's
life. During the twelve years 1 served your father,
the late Lord Middleton at Dubersly, my affection for
his person (and which 1 still cherish toward his memory)
alone suppressed those longings — to which I was often
subject — to quit England for a time and seek a
change of scene and contingent adventure in foreign
lands. Although I am now in my fifty-eighth year,
I had never thoroughly extinguished this feeling of
unrest and desire for danger. I was gifted at my
birth, I am now quite confident, with a certain
amount of bravery or intrepidity, as you may call it,
which would have best exhibited itself in a military
career. As it was, I had never been blessed or afflicted
with a single opportunity to display either of these
natural gifts. Whether my outward temper has been
too placid and my disposition to anger so slight, I
know not, but never in my whole life had I laid hands
violently on a fellow-being. Neither bully, brawler,
nor midnight assassin has ever crossed my path. Burg-
lars and sneak thieves have avoided me and my envi-
ronments as they would the plague. 2s~o runaway
horse or mad dog had ever called into requisition
those powers which had been latent within me during
a whole lifetime. My existence, indeed, was a mono-
tone, none the less so (I am conscious of apparent
ingratitude in saying this) because I have been physi-
cally comfortable and free to all avenues of harmless

HAROLD.

23

pleasure and recreation. Millions might have envied
my lot ; as for me, I only know I chafed internally as
I saw the years slip by, one by one, and old age threat-
ening to crown a life void of a single stirring passage.

Judge, then, and blame me if I seized tenaciously
upon this remarkable opportunity your lordship saw
fit to place in my hands, and refused to permit emo-
tion of any kind access to my breast. They knew me
so well, that none endeavored to elicit information
which they perceived I was averse to volunteer.
Once or twice, while in bed, I considered strongly my
original resolve to take no companion with me, and
endeavored to invent and multiply dangers which the
mission would entail, and to face which alone would
not only be imprudent, but which might endanger
the success of the enterprise. This latter considera-
tion, however, was the only one I entertained for a
moment. Even had I known of a young man I could
trust to silence, I would not have robbed myself of a
single iota of peril by any such encumbrance.

I will pass over any further incidents of my departure,
and come at once to my stepping aboard the merchant
brig Queen Vic, off Southampton, on the 12th of Sep-
tember. My luggage was light, everything I needed
or fancied I should need being compactly arranged in a
single valise. The sum of five hundred sovereigns in
gold and bank-notes lay in a tin box at the bottom.
The captain of the brig informed me that I would
reach my island easily in five weeks, perhaps in four,
with good winds and by skirting the coast. I carried
the fine map you gave me constantly in the pocket
of my greatcoat, except when I was engaged in study-

24

HAROLD.

ing or exhibiting it to the crew, which, indeed, was
not seldom. The captain of the brig had never seen
so fine a map, and when I told him there was but one
other Africa like it, and that in the possession of
the Royal Geographical Society, he appeared highly
interested. He related to me many anecdotes of his
voyages, which formerly lay between Liverpool and
Rio de Janeiro. He had only within the past six
years been plying the trade of his company at African
ports. The great difficulty, he explained, was in ob-
taining a crew for such a voyage.

" Sailors, as a rule," said he, " like to enjoy them-
selves ashore, and vessels that stop at big cities, where
a spree can be obtained, are most in demand. At Sierra
Leone, after my first passage, the crew got mutinous,
and swore they would never move the ship toward
home ; but when they saw that the sailors of a Portu-
guese and an English brig were ready to desert for my
offer of double pay, they only swore they would never
ship out from England again. "

When we arrived at the- fortieth latitude it grew
perceptibly warmer, and off Lisbon I discarded my
greatcoat. I was fearful lest I should be disappointed
of a storm at sea, about which I had heard much.
But just as we had sighted the Madeira Islands a ter-
rific gale arose, which took the brig many miles farther
out to sea, but in a southerly direction, so our course
I was but little delayed. The brig touched at the island
of Teneriffe for water, and on September 28th con-
tinued on to the Bissagos. The captain told me a story
of his ship having been attacked and the crew nearly
killed by natives. The Zulus, he observed, and, in

HAROLD,

25

fact, all the blacks he had ever encountered, were the
most ferocious in the world ; but that he had observed
that they had one redeeming trait, that of being
iC open to sense." All other savages, in his opinion,
were simply madmen, without a single lucid interval.
He had observed in all his dealings wTith the blacks
that they were readily excited to laughter, that they
were not sullen, like the Malay, or treacherous, like the
American savage. I asked him what he traded for
his ivory, and he said gold. Barter was more profit-
able, but there was much more risk attached to it, so
the major profits passed through the hands of the
English settlers of the country, who were well known
as mediums of exchange by the natives of the far
inland.

On the 18th of October the Queen Vic stood in sight
of one of the Bissagos, and at about three in the after-
noon I bid the captain farewell, with the understanding
that I was to undertake my return passage when the brig
should touch at the same island — i.e., about the 15th of
November, against which time I reckoned to have
fulfilled my mission, with a week -to spare. Two of
the crew rowed me in a small boat to the island, and
summoning an interpreter among the handful of
natives assembled on the beach, wished me good luck
and left me.

I observed that the island was long and narrow, the
greater part covered with a thick shrub underbrush,
the rest being sand. A few clumps of palms grew
here and there, to relieve the effect of sameness both
in color and in height of foliage. I experienced no
difficulty in making my plans known to the natives,

26

HAROLD.

whom I found were partially cirilized, but not so
much so but that they were ready to backslide into
barbarism upon slight provocation, as I have since
witnessed. The fact of my landing upon Morai
Island was, as your lordship is aware, the unwilling-
ness of the captain of the brig to touch at any point
on the mainland north of Freetown. The natives of
the various coast islands long since found it to their
interest to be friendly with the mariners, who in turn
show no disposition to regard these in the light of au
enemy. These were the first savages I had ever seen,
and I gazed on them for several minutes with curiosity
and astonishment. The utter absence of any wearing
apparel on their part at first put me under a kind of
restraint, which I with difficulty overcame. In fact,
when one of their native women, in a state of utter
jpuris naturalibus, offered to cook food for me, I
evinced my repugnance to the entire proceeding in a
fashion which to them must have been very apparent
and insulting. After that they made all haste to get
me into a small boat, formed from a couple of hollowed
logs, and directed a youth of about sixteen years to
paddle me to Kacundi. This settlement was on the
adjacent opposite shore. I left with them a number
of trinkets of small continental value, but for which
they would gladly have given up the prize for which
I sought. Mindful of your instructions, however, to
procure an infant of two to three years, of a tribe
flourishing upon the mainland, and if possible a little
to the interior, I put the island of Morai behind me,
and by the aid of the rude rudder steered as the black
youth directed.

HAROLD.

27

There was not a single human being on the beach
when I landed from the boat. It was after sun-
down, and for the first time since the commence-
ment of the undertaking, I confess I stood aghast
at my own temerity. That there were white set-
tlers here I did not for a moment doubt, but witli
the absence of law and civilization, their color would
but enhance the difficulties of the situation. I there-
fore made signs to the boy to proceed at once to the
cabin of the whites and give them news of my arrival.
It was quite dusk when he returned, but several rods
distant I made out the figure of a man by his side.
The man I knew at once to be a European, because
I detected the flapping of an outer garment to the
wind. He was bat slightly taller than the Morai
youth and stooped considerably in his carriage. As
he drew near I observed that he was of about my own
age, his hair being white or nearly so. I had some
doubt about his nationality, owing to the tanned con-
dition of his skin, exposed as it was continually to the
burning tropical sun ; but I was not left long in con-
jecture upon this head, for after adjusting a pair of
spectacles, which he took from his pocket, he uttered
an ejaculation of astonishment as sincere as it was
loud. I can now readily understand his amazement,
which, in truth, did not occur to me at the time. The
sight of a solitary Englishman landing on a barbarous
coast, satchel in hand, and looking for all the world as
if he had just stepped out of the train at Charing Cross
Station — this being the simile Roderick Allen after-
ward used — must indeed have been impressive. After
staring at me for some moments,

28

HAROLD.

" Who are you ?" he asked.

" My name is John Holland, a barrister of Waver-
ly Court, London, charged, with a mission to Af-
rica."

At these words my companion turned deadly pale,
tottered visibly, and exclaimed :

" My God !" and afterward, in a tone of more self-
possession, " What folly !' 5 and then to me :

" Have you a mission here ? Why do you land so
far up the coast ? How did you land ? Are you not
aware that this is a hostile settlement ?"

He plied me with so many questions that I was fain
to answer his last query first, which I did by observing
that I was far from being aware that the tribe of
Kacundi was hostile to the whites. On the contrary,
I had been implicitly assured that it was most friendly,
and that, furthermore, several English traders had
settled in the locality.

" I see you have not been informed of the present
condition of affairs in this part of Senegambia. The
whites were all massacred last spring, and none have
since dared to show themselves or renew negotiations.
AH the trading of the tribe is done with the Arabs, to
the north."

" How, then, do you survive ?" I exclaimed, in a
tone of astonishment.

My companion smiled and executed a deep, mean-
ing gesture.

" I am one of the chiefs of the Kacundi," he re-
plied. I thought he uttered the words bitterly.

u Why, then," said 1, " you must be Roderick
Allen !"

HAROLD.

29

The man started a4s if a bolt of lightning had smit-
ten him.

66 Do not be astonished at that," I made haste to
say. " Perhaps you recall Mr. Inigo Bright, a young
Englishman who travelled through this country three
years ago. If you are Roderick Allen, I have a mes-
sage from him to you and also a small package, which
he bade me deliver to you in case you were still
alive. "

At the mention of Mr. Bright your lordship would
have been surprised to see the change of an opposite
character which came over Roderick Allen. His face
lit up with the sense of recollection, and he came for-
ward and held out his hand. He bade the negro boy
begone to his island with the boat. I observed he
spoke to the youth in the latter' s native tongue, a suc-
cession of unpleasant, guttural tones, anything but
musical to the ear of a European. He then turned to
me and bade me accompany him, at the same time
assisting me with the valise. We reached a series of
thatched mud huts after eight minutes' moderate
walking, during which I meditated upon my pros-
pects and surroundings. As for my companion, he
never offered to sound a syllable. Choosing the most
pretentious cabin of the group, Roderick Allen made
directly for it, bidding me remain outside for an in-
stant until he should return. I was directly under a
row of palm-trees when he left me.

I could readily distinguish noises and the light of a
torch proceeding from the cabin, which was large in
comparison and capable of holding, 1 should think,
ten persons. I looked at my watch — it was twenty

30

HAROLD.

minutes to eight — and sat down upon my satchel,
which I placed on end for the purpose.

There has never been a moment in my life when I
felt more thoroughly composed and less the spirit of
fear. The night was very warm, but there was a fine
sea breeze, and I have never seen so grand a moon. I
adjudged the body of the natives to be asleep, so quiet
and reposeful everything was. 'Twas exactly twenty
minutes before Roderick Allen returned, yet I had
not evinced the slightest impatience.

Indeed, in this singular emergency I experienced a
certain exaltation of spirit which I had never before
known. It seemed as if I had been injected into
another age and atmosphere, as well as another clime.
If a horde of blood-thirsty savages had suddenly
emerged and come upon me, 1 doubt if I should have
been betrayed into a single expression of sinister
emotion.

Tour lordship will pardon me for saying that,
whenever it please God to remove me from this earth,
I may meet the blow with similar fortitude of mind
to the one I have now feebly attempted to describe.

"When Roderick Allen came to seek me, he was
accompanied by six or eight of the most ferocious-
looking human beings I had ever set eyes on. I had
seen savages upon exhibition at the Crystal Palace
some years ago, but they must have been transported
from some less barbarous tribe, or were partially
civilized themselves. The horrible, sensual mouths
of these people, with their huge, projecting teeth,
especially struck me as revolting. I was so much
occupied with my own thoughts that I had not ob-

HAROLD. 31

served them until they had drawn quite near. They
gesticulated quite violently for several moments, but
when they had observed me and heard my voice, they
quieted down and seemed not ill pleased at my visit.

Roderick Allen then informed me that I should
spend the night at his cabin and might acquaint him of
my project in the morning. To this I readily agreed,
and, the blacks having left us, we made our way to
another dwelling, where several women were awaiting
my companion's return. These, he told me, were his
wives, two of whom, acting under his orders, imme-
diately busied themselves in warming over the flesh of
some animal for our supper, from which he had been
hastily summoned by my boatman from Morai. We
talked little at our meal, during which the negresses,
with one exception, absented themselves from the
cabin proper and sought repose for the night. Upon
its conclusion Roderick Allen showed me my bunk of
palm leaves, and asked me if I were ready to retire.
Upon my assenting, he immediately extinguished the
two torches and, throwing himself down on a similar
pallet, made as if to sleep. His heavy, regular breath-
ing for a time did not deceive me in believing him
actually in slumber, for I myself practised the same de-
ception for upward of an hour, in order to assure him,
when I fell into a state of drowsiness and slept till
morning.

Roderick Allen did not once close his eyes. After
becoming acquainted with his history f did not much
wonder at that.

At daybreak I found him up, and I then proceeded
to lay before him the nature of my mission and deliver

32

HAROLD.

the small parcel of books which Mr. Bright had in-
trusted me with. He was silent during the whole of
my talk, but when I was quite through he observed
that it would be fatally impossible to secure so much
as a lock of wool from the head of any male infant of
the Kacundi tribe. There were, however, tribes to
the north and east whose skin was blacker and who
had never, to his knowledge, come in contact with a
white man. Their types were purer, but they were
not cannibals, like the natives of the coast. With
them I would find no such obstacle thrown in my
path, for if I marked my plans well I could secure
any male infant I chose, with the chief's connivance.

" What do you mean by working my plans well ?"
I asked.

"I suppose you come well supplied with knick-
knacks for barter ?" he said.

I told him I had plenty of English currency, and
he informed me I could exchange it for beads and
rings with the Kacundi. He seemed highly pleased
with the present of the books, but took occasion to
say : " When your young English traveller was here,
he was the first intelligent white man I had seen in
years. I loved to talk with him, and the desire to
read came upon me strongly. But," he added, pass-
ing his hand through his white hair, " I have changed
much even during five years. My hold on Europe
grows less strong, and I often think I shall die a bar-
barian. If it^were not for my habit of talking much
to myself, I even fancy I should long ago have relin-
quished my language and yours !"

CHAPTEE VI.

" Harold was he hight ; but whence his name
And lineage long, it suits me not to say."

— Bteon.

Realizing that I bad now plenty of time to spare, I
remained a fall week with Roderick Allen and the
Kacundi tribe before setting out with an interpreter
for the north.

I refrain from any further enlargement of the life
and surroundings of these people, fearing that in the
light of recent matter which has appeared in print,
your lordship will find the narrative tedious.

On October 29th we set out on the journey of
eighty miles northward. Waki-waki was the curious
name of the rather intelligent black who accompanied
me. Waki-waki was the body-servant of the white
chieftain, and had picked up, somehow, just enough
English for me to convey to him my simpler ideas and
desires. The route was partially on the sea-coast and
partially through a tract of semi-desert country.
We bore a rude pannier full of those articles which the
tribes we had just left had only been too glad to ex-
change for the glittering sovereigns of the white man.

My advent into the settlement of the Mabri created
the most intense excitement. Naked savages ran
hither and thither to apprise their friends, at the same
time swinging their immense spears and creating a

34

HAROLD.

perfect pandemonium of yells. It seemed as if a
sable Bedlam had broken loose.

Notwithstanding these alarming demonstrations, the
chief received me cordially. I think he may have
been impelled toward this demeanor after seeing what
I carried. On the other hand, he was the only man
in the tribe, I afterward learned, who had ever laid
eyes on a white skin.

I stood in the centre of a sort of rude public square,
shortly after my arrival, while the chief sent his
negroes to prepare a hut for my accommodation. All
about me the nude savages crowded, but never so close
as to touch my person, about which they appeared to
entertain a kind of superstition. The women were
especially attracted by curiosity at my clothing, whose
purpose, no doubt, occasioned as much speculation as
the color of such portions of my body as were visible.
I had especially cautioned Waki-waki under no cir-
cumstances to relate or allude to, in any way, the
object of my visit before any but the chief of the tribe
himself.

While, after glancing at the countenance of Magu-
zala, upon which greed, covetousness, and weakness of
character were too strongly impressed not to be ap-
parent, I had no doubt of prevailing with him, at the
same time I desired to have a private conference, with
? the aid of Waki-waki, and primarily make sure of my
ground. When, therefore, the sovereign of the Mabri
announced that my hut was ready, I determined to
wait until morning before I broached the subject at all.

Early the next day, after feasting liberally upon
pineapples and dried rhinoceros flesh, I waited upon

HAROLD.

35

his majesty, Maguzala, and then and there indulged
in a conversation such as the primitive form of our
mutual expression would permit of.

Now, almost the first thing this chief observed was,
whether I wanted slaves and whether I would not
accept a half dozen off-hand from him. 1 was not
prepared for this opportunity, but quickly saw that it
would be wise to immediately avail myself of it.
Ignoring, then, my previous resolution, I made bold
to state at once my quest.

I wanted a healthy male infant, perfectly Mack
and sound and natural in every "physical particular,
to be not above two or two and a half years, that
being the period when the least risk would attach to
his removal.

Maguzala listened with an animated countenance,
and at the end expressed his perfect ability to comply
with every detail of my request.

He seemed glad to think he had got off so
easily, and when I called Waki-waki and displayed
the treasures of the rude basket, he was overjoyed,
and grinned and gesticulated incessantly. Upon my
part, the interview concluded, I returned to my hut,
and composed myself with a couple of fans, with the
understanding that all would be satisfactorily arranged
during the afternoon.

After the great heat of the meridian had subsided,
therefore, I sauntered out with Waki-waki and two
servants, provided by the chief, Maguzala, for my es-
cort, to select an infant such as 1 desired. It never
once entered my head that I was committing anything
which was not in the highest degree laudable, in res-

36

HAROLD.

cuing a soul from among these wretched savages to a
place in the lap of European civilization. That the
relatives of such a child would experience the slightest
twinge of sorrow or regret at such a proceeding I had
good reason to emphatically doubt, from the readiness
with which their chief acceded to my proposition.
Many of these savages had a dozen children, and I
deemed would be glad to part with one of them for
treasures far dearer to their hearts.

During my walk, in which I was attended by the
king's servants, bearing palm leaves over my head, an
incident occurred which I must not forbear to men-
tion. I have already observed that the women of the
tribe were most keenly alive to my presence ; now,
much to the mortification and chagrin of the male
negroes, who, standing off at a little distance, con-
templated me with ill-concealed distrust. These
n egresses were entirely nude and remarkably well
formed. Their swelling hips and polished black skins
reminded me of certain paintings which his late lord-
ship had imported from Morocco, the work of a
Frenchman resident in that country. The women
followed me about with lecherous glances, and finally
one of them, either stumbling or through design,
caught hold of my upper garment. The instant she
did so, her companions set up a hideous cry, which
was caught up by the whole camp. Scores of blacks,
who, knowing my intimacy with Maguzala, had per-
mitted their wives to follow me, with no other emotion
than that of curiosity, now came running in my direc-
tion, with their spears poised, and uttering the most
fearful yells.

HAROLD.

37

I really believed my last hour had come.

The tumult was interrupted at this juncture by
Maguzala himself, who at once divined the cause, and
bade his warriors disperse. The incident, however,
made a great impression upon my mind, and convinced
me that I was unpopular and that my best course was
to hurry, at any odds, the moment of my return.
Were the reason of my presence known, it might in-
deed go hard with me.

Accordingly, I repaired to the chief's hut at dusk,
where several black women and Maguzala himself were
awaiting my arrival. A row of sturdy black infants
lay upon the floor of the royal cabin. Maguzala in-
formed me that these were the mothers of the children
I saw, and that I might choose one to my liking and
depart the next morning. The women were a crafty,
shame-faced lot, I thought, and by no means so young
and comely as those wTho had dogged my footsteps
during the afternoon.

I quickly made a choice. One of the infants was
so incomparably superior to the other five, that I
ordered an immediate examination of his person. His
skin was of the color of ebony, his teeth perfectly
white and even, and his hair of that glossy texture,
common, I believe, to certain tribes. His nose was
not so flat as that of the adult negro, in this respect
resembling, however, Maguzala himself, as well as in
the thinness of his lips.

But here I am assured that almost all the facial
characteristics of the negro are developed during the
period of adolescence by the bestiality of his conduct,
for all the countenances of Mabri children I had seen

38

HAROLD.

of from two to ten years were far from being coarse.
The thickness of the lips invariably accentuates the
flatness of the nasal organ, I am told.

I signified at once to the chief my disposition to
bind the bargain at once, to which Maguzala cheer-
fully agreed.

What was my amazement to see in the putative par-
ent of the infant I had chosen a wizened old woman,
with dried- up breasts and a shock of gray, grizzly
wool, which completely covered her ears and otherwise
overspread her countenance. I could scarce refrain
from uttering the exclamation which was on my lips,
to think that such a perfect offspring could descend
from such a mother.

1 cut short my feelings of surprise, however, in the
thought that I was doubly fortunate, for the old hag's
eyes sparkled at the paltry beads and earrings which I
handed her (at the direction of Maguzala, who, cun-
ning rogue, retained about four fifths of the treasure
for himself), and seemingly was glad to get rid of her
brat upon such terms. The child was forthwith cared
for in the royal hut, against my departure in the morn-
ing, when the chief had promised me an escort for a
third of my journey back to the coast.

The same evening I retired to my own habitation
with Waki-waki, and, having partaken of a bountiful
meal sent from the royal kitchen, extinguished the
torch and closed my eyes in slumber.

The hut in which 1 slept was a rudely thatched
structure of clay and bark, having a single entrance,
which was invariably guarded by a stack of rushes
and plant stalks, and behind these Waki-waki, the

HAROLD.

39

interpreter, slept. It is the custom of the Mabri and
all neighboring tribes to retire immediately after dusk
and sleep till daybreak. Of midnight theft, assassina-
tion, and warfare they knew nothing. In time of
war darkness is a sign for the cessation of hostilities,
and the man who attempted to revenge himself upon
his enemy under cover of night would be held up to
the execration and barbarism of the whole tribe. The
Mabri is not what would be called a hospitable nation,
but the stranger need have no fear of nocturnal
treachery, of all treachery instinctively the most base.
With this I explain to your lordship why I slept in
utter security and apprehended no danger.

I could not recall what my dreams were when I
awoke, but I was sure they were of a thoroughly peace-
ful nature. It was still almost pitch dark. I arose on
my elbow and tried to peer about, speculating the
while upon the causes of my awakening. These I felt
would not be easy of discovery, and I was on the point
of again dropping back on my primitive pillow, when
a slight noise, proceeding from the door of the hut,
roused me at once.

Without making the slightest movement which could
be heard, I sat up and waited patiently for the cause.
Waki-waki's heavy breathing convinced me that he
was fast asleep, and the noise I had heard was that of
a soft tread, together with a slight metallic tinkle,
which I knew he could not possibly have made. 1
was convinced that this was what had awakened me.
Meantime, it rapidly grew light, but not enough for
me to distinguish an object in a distant corner of the
hut.

40

HAROLD.

Without waiting any longer, therefore, for develop-
ments, I immediately sprang up, and grasping the
torch which lay on the ground near me (and which I
had no means of relighting), sallied to the door of the
hut and peered out. I could see objects plainer there,
but not a living thing was in sight. Conceiving the
idea of some animal, tame or otherwise, ensconced in
the hut, I returned immediately, and began to lay the
end of the torch about me, in the hopes of striking
something.

Unsuccessful in this, 1 made as if to return to my
couch, when, to my utter horror and amazement, I
found it, or rather felt it already occupied. That it
was a human being I knew full well ; there could be
no mistaking the touch of his or her skin.

Of a sudden it flashed upon me that this was a wom-
an, in all probability one of the women who had follow-
ed me the previous day.

Although an exceedingly modest man, and much
alive to feelings of delicacy, the presence of this amor-
ous black woman inspired me only with a feeling of
anger, not unmingled with disgust. Her motives I
could readily divine, and I lost no time in deciding
the course I should pursue. I was on the point of
arousing Waki-waki, when a terrible shriek rent the air,
and Waki-waki himself sprang up near the entrance,
only to find himself felled to earth again by a hand
much more powerful than his own. In the struggle
that ensued I became conscious of the figure of a
woman dashing past me oat into the open air, where
it was now quite light. Realizing what this turmoil
might cost me, I took advantage of the moment when

HAROLD.

41

the tussle between the two negroes was the fiercest to
make good my exit, which I did as fast as my legs
would carry me, in the direction of the royal hut.

Simultaneously the whole settlement was in an up-
roar.

I divined during my flight the connection between
the negresswho had invaded my hut and the man who
had followed her and assailed my faithful Kacundi.
The chief had just arisen when I entered. " What,"
thought I, u am I to do without an interpreter V'y I
therefore signified to the astonished Maguzala my dis-
tress as best I could, and implored his protection.
Whether he had future commercial transactions of a
similar nature or the fear of the presently hostile
Kacundi before his eyes I shall never know, but, at
all events, he determined not to sacrifice me. He
was not left long in doubt as to the real nature of the
danger which threatened me. I was the first white
man ever to set foot upon that soil, and the blacks
evidently regarded me as an evil spirit, whom they had
sworn to slaughter. If their awe for their chief's
person was not very great, there had not now been
the slightest chance that I should have survived to
tell this tale. These shrieking, foaming savages sur-
rounded the dwelling and began a blood-curdling war-
dance, tossing their lances in mid-air and constantly
being augmented from distant parts of the settlement,
until several hundred wTere gathered together. Magu-
zala coolly donned his great war plume, and, grasping
a monstrous spear in his right hand, went to the door
of the hut, attended by two of his servants. The
multitude of savages then only increased their yelling

42

HAROLD,

until lie waved to them to be silent. Maguzala then
loudly uttered a few guttural sounds, of no import to
me, and a great body of blacks came over and stood
by his side. Maguzala then addressed them again,
and immediately there were more horrid cries. One
savage, more obstreperous than the rest, shook his
lance in the king's face. The whole tribe started, and
I could see, even under his black skin, Maguzala's
face grow paler. The words he uttered were horrible
in their fierceness and blood-curdling in their conse-
quence.

The wretched man's head was immediately severed
from his shoulders, and a stream of hot blood gushed
up into the air.

It was the most sickening sight 1 ever saw or that
can possibly be imagined. My heart for a moment
actually ceased to beat. Every savage face grew livid
with terror.

In the midst of this silence I heard the voice of
Waki-waki, and presently my faithful negro was borne
into Maguzala's presence with a great wound, made by
a spear, in his left arm. The chief of the tribe ordered
him to be freed, and Waki-waki then told how he had
been awakened and wounded, after which he explained
to me by gestures, positively indecent, the charges
against me. By thumping himself violently on the
throat with his clenched fist, he demonstrated the
punishment the tribe demanded for myself and the
woman.

Shocked almost beyond expression, I indignantly
denied the charges, and demanded of Maguzala per-
mission to leave the country without further delay.

HAROLD,

43

At this, as if divining my words, the cries were re-
newed with even increased vigor, and the same mo-
tions and gesticulations were repeated. It was in
vain that the more violent were threatened with in-
stant death ; a seeming majority demanded my blood
as revenge for betraying a woman of their tribe, and
pretended to repel my denial.

The scenes that followed I will not shock your
lordship by attempting to describe. I remained bar-
ricaded in the royal hut while Maguzala asserted his
authority over the insurgents by knife and lance. I
have no doubt that the loyal savages easily carried the
day. But when the noise of the conflict had moved
away to some distance from the royal hut, Maguzala
sent back a dozen of his men with the message, deliv-
ered by signs, that I must flee. Hastily, therefore,
calling to one of the women who had remained in the
adjoining hut (the two connecting by a single en-
trance), I bid them bring the black child with them,
which they did. Five of the band only were to
accompany Waki-waki and myself, and that for the
first day only ; and these, with the assistance of the
women, got together enough provisions to last us on
our three days' journey ; after which, with the noise
of the fighting still in our ears, we were soon on the
march southward. That was on Monday, the 3d of
November. Tuesday morning I and my escort
parted. Waki-waki's wound had been a severe one,
but he had it bandaged, and did not seem to mind it
much.

The black child was under my especial care, each
of us taking turns at carrying it, and I concerning

HAROLD.

myself that lie should not lack for food or drink or
become ill during the journey. On the afternoon of
the same day "Waki-waki suddenly stopped, and with a
look of intense sagacity motioned to me that we were
followed.

I counselled against it, but he persisted in leav-
ing me for a few moments, just as we had passed
over a slight knoll upon which several palm-trees
grew, and retracing his steps back over this slight
eminence.

I heard him give a slight cry an instant later, and
would have gone back to inquire the cause but for
my young charge, whom I determined to guard
religiously.

It was fully five minutes before he returned, and
rendered me the astounding information that two
young women were following us. Furthermore,
that these two were sisters, and, to Waki-waki's
eyes, beautiful ; that one of them was the mother
of the black child 1 was carrying off and the other
the female who had in such an extraordinary man-
ner esteemed me her lover ! To say that 1 was
staggered by this intelligence would be to express
myself in very mild terms. I did not know for an
instant what course to pursue. I inquired of "Waki-
waki what should best be done under the circum-
stances. My companion replied that if the younger
of the two women went back to her tribe, her husband
would murder her in the most shocking manner. The
other wanted her offspring returned to her, but dared
not demand it of me and incur the enmity of Magu-
zala. Waki-waki described to me her rage and de-

HAROLD.

45

spair at the royal theft of her child, and suggested
that the only way to rid ourselves of the dilemma
was to kill both women ; otherwise she would either
set upon me and tear my eyes out (he pointing to his
disabled arm), in the effort to regain her infant, or,
what was worse still, would stir up enmity against me
among the Kacundi.

To this horrible proposition I revolted with energy,
and was beginning to think of some way out of the
difficulty, when Waki-waki gave a sudden cry of
warning, and I sprang up with the infant just in
the nick of time. The bushes at our side had parted,
and a tall, agile negress made at me desperately. She
was too apparently in just the condition my black
man had described — rendered half mad with grief and
hatred.

I had just evaded her first onslaught, when another
black figure, which I readily recognized, appeared in
hot pursuit of the other.

Before either of us could interfere she had sprung
like a tiger at the throat of her sister and bore her to
earth.

The battle was short and fierce, and the result might
have been doubtful had not Waki-waki attempted to
interfere, whereupon the younger darted upon a knife
which hung in his belt, and wielded it with quick and
awful cunning.

In another second her sister, both born of the same
mother, lay dead at her feet.

During the short struggle the breasts of both women
had heaved, their lips had reddened, their whole forms
had assumed that terrible feminine grandeur which is

46

HAROLD.

common to woman inspired with fierce emotion in every
clime. Rooted to the spot as I was out of infinite hor-
ror, I could not resist the feeling of admiration which
I felt stealing over me, at the sight of this battle of real
Amazons. Amazons, I may remark, both were, but
both were impelled by the heart and the affections.
The one sought to protect me from worse than a
tiger's rage, that of a mother wronged, and the other to
rescue her child and wreak vengeance on its abductor.

When the younger woman saw what she had done,
she threw away the bloody weapon, and before I
could prevent ran and hung weeping about my neck.
I will pass over my thoughts at the moment. Who
can explain the universal mystery of the human heart
— the inscrutable passion of one soul for another,
although debased and dense in its knowledge of
humanity ?

# •* # ■* *

Let me also pass over our return to the country of
the Kacundi. 1 could not leave this woman to the
rude mercy of her enemies. Indeed, I could not,
even if I had wished. I saw, besides, that I had
overlooked the difficulty of attending a two-year in-
fant on an ocean voyage alone, that a nurse was in-
dispensable. In short, I conquered my aversion, and
the black woman accompanied me aboard ship, which,
I should state, was the Bellaire, the Queen Vic hav-
ing been detained in an unforeseen manner, after leav-
ing Cape Town, by the disabling of her rudder during
a gale. The captain had been kind enough to signal
the Bellaire to stop at the Bissagos, whither I boarded
her, and took leave of my friend, Roderick Allen.

HAROLD.

47

But I was not yet destined to be free from all
anxiety about the success of my expedition.

On the fifth day of our voyage the black child was
taken violently ill. I was in despair, and paid not the
slightest attention to the curiosity and amazement of
the crew, but walked about the decks all day long in
the extremest agitation. Knowing that I wished it,
the black girl (she could not have been more than
eighteen or nineteen) attended the child unceasingly,
day and night.

I never discovered the cause of his complaint, for
on the eighth day he died, and I was thrown into
utter despair.

I was not long to remain in this condition, however,
for the captain, to whom I had confided the manner
in which I had been undone, observed :

' " Is that all? Is a little nigger all you want?
Well, I think we shall have one hefore the month is
out."

The captain eventually proved right. He had ob-
served what I should never have thought to notice.
The negress, whom I had named Chloe, was enceinte.
But whether the child would be a male or female
subjected me to so much agony of suspense that I will
pass over it in haste. My faith in Providence told
me that it would be a boy, and I at length left it in
His hands. The great load was shortly, as you know,
lifted off my mind.

The voyage was short and propitious, and after one
hundred and forty-two days' absence from England,
I landed with my extraordinary mission fulfilled, by
the grace of Providence, even more than to the letter.

CHAPTER VII.

JDem. Soft ; who comes here ?

Enter a Nurse, with a black-a-moor child in her arms.

— Titus Andronicus.

The country-seat of Lord Middleton, at Capen-
hurst, comprised rather more than five hundred acres
of mere and woodland.

In former times it had been situate in the hamlet of
Dubersly, which since the epoch of reform had diffused
and finally centred itself two miles to the south in the
borough of Capenhurst. The mansion itself was of
brick and red sandstone, turreted and gabled in the
goodly style of our great-great-grandfathers.

The only time Dubersly was occupied was during the
summer season, when its sides were half covered over
with striped Venetian awnings, which not only har-
monized well with the landscape, but lent the mansion
at times a decidedly modern appearance. Its in-
terior was less modern and more picturesque. The
furniture had all come down recently from his pres-
ent lordship's London house, where Lady May Dubersly
concluded it was no longer in vogue — too heavy and of
too stately a pattern to be cheerful in the sight of the
invalid. In at least two of the apartments at Dubersly
the ancestral portraits of the family stared, grim and
speechless, from their frames. They were a good-
natured and jolly, if a thoroughly conservative lot —

HAROLD.

49

Lord Middleton's ancestors — if one might judge from
these portraits. .

Dubersly House was built in 1713 ; a medallion of
the great duke was imbedded in one of the marble
panels over the portico, with a date below it, " May
12, 1713"— the day of the signing of the Utrecht
Peace. On that day, too, the house was finished, and
Duberslys had come and gone since then ; branches of
the family had been given marquisates and even
earldoms, but the descendants of the Dubersly —
he who was Grand High Equerry to the Conqueror
—never aspired to anything above their estate,
which might be supposed, as one of the most ancient
families in the kingdom, had always been highly
honorable.

Henry Charles, Lord Middleton, was the first mar-
quis in the direct line.

A whole year had elapsed since Inigo Bright and
his friend gossiped on the wide lawn. It was now a
clear, open day in early June. Andrew, the Scotch
gardener, was industriously working a scythe upon
the aspiring sheaves of early summer grass. Mrs.
Jennet, the housekeeper, had set three or four cages
of canaries out to bask in the warm sunshine. The
mansion was undergoing the usual annual cleaning
and renovation. Kingsley, one of the big footmen in
Caermarthen Square, had arrived a couple of days
previously to assist the housekeeper in putting every,
thing at Dubersly to rights, in view of its approach-
ing summer occupancy. At present this worthy was
engaged in fanning his reclining person within one of
the antique bay-windows.

50

HAKOLD.

" Hit's a damn houtrage," lie soliloquized, with
much less energy of manner than his statement seems
to call for. " What's a damn outrage, Kingsley ?"
(It was Kingsley' s characteristic to soliloquize thus.)
uWy, to arsk a gentleman to trapse hup an' down
arfter a' old 'ag, honly because the gentleman spoke
of 'appens to be hofficiating as footman in a 'igh
fam'ly. Just to think, a-washink windows, an' a-
cleanink furniture— in the country P '

The personage officiating as footman in a high
family laid especial stress upon the rustic situation
of the aforementioned employments. It appeared
as if the washing of windows and the cleansing of
furniture was humiliating under any circumstances ;
to be obliged to perform these functions in the
country was adding to their natural indignity and
degradation.

" The very hidea of respectable people a-leavink
Lunnon an' Brighton an5 Parry to hexist 'ere is more
than 1 can conjecture. Two miles for a drop o' gin,
and then honly 'alf a public as is a public. Now, my
advice is — 'Ullo — I say, wot are you a-doink 'ere,
my man ?"

A pale little boy in a green coat stood staring pleas-
antly at Mr. Kingsley. During the first part of that
footman's chaste monologue the pale little boy had
been making his way from the entrance to Dubersly,
along the path which traversed the front lawn, wholly
unobserved.

" Well, ragamuffin, speak hup," pursued Kingsley,
in a lordly yet tolerant way. " Wot's yer message ?
Wot 'ave yer got, my fire feller ? The butcher is to

HAROLD.

51

send hover a pound of meat or p'raps the village
tinker presents 'is compliments — hey ? Come, 'and it
hover to me."

The ragamuffin's expression grew to one of intense
amusement.

66 To you ?" he returned, slowly, and with edifying
sarcasm. " O — oh ! P'raps we don't know who we
is ? No ; p'raps not. Witechapel fer a farden's
wort'. Does your mistress 'appen to be hengaged or
does she 'appen to be wery busy ? Say !"

Mr. Kingsley started up with that ominous frown
which, when worn by footmen, is fatal to small boys
— i.e., plebeian small boys.

" Keep off, ol' feller, no larks," continued the
youthful messenger in green. " I'm a-droppink in fer
a friendly wisit on Mrs. J. Jennet, your wery indul-
gent mistress — hi ! — help ! lemme go !"

This last piece of insolence was more than Mr.
Kingsley could stand. With agility unusual for him
he sprang and caught the offender by the coat- collar.
It was about to go hard with the youth when the
housekeeper herself appeared. At which the pale
boy in green immediately announced himself in his
capacity of errand-boy, lately established at Pope's
Inn, and present messenger from the residence of Mr.
John Holland, barrister, whither his lordship and
Inigo Bright had repaired the previous evening. The
letter he bore was formally delivered into the hands
of the housekeeper, and by her read as follows :

Pope's Inn, 5 o'clock p.m., Jane the 5th.

My dear Mrs. Jennet : Lord Middleton has in-
structed me to tell you that, although he has decided

52

HAROLD.

not to occupy Dubersly House this summer, the same
must be ready for immediate occupancy. Mr. Inigo
Bright will be down by an early coach to-morrow,
and the new occupants of Dubersly House will follow
on Thursday — if nothing prevents. Kingsley is in-
structed to remain for some two weeks longer or until
his lordship notifies him. His lordship believes he
can trust you to attend to every detail attending the
approaching occupancy in a faithful and conscientious
manner.

Believe me, my dear Jennet,

Your friend,

John Holland,

CHAPTER VIII.

" We often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, aDd
hereditary virtues, but whoever will critically examine the evi-
dence will find that we have no proof of their existence." —
Buckle, History of Civilization.

The appointed Thursday came and went and many
others along with it. So quietly had the secret been
kept that none of the villagers of Capenhurst knew
of the arrival of the strange little personage who was
to be thenceforth for many years master of Dubersly
House.

That little personage was now six months old.
Precisely that period before the little black boy had
been ushered into the world at the sign of the Blue
Dragon, at Portsmouth, to relieve the mind of the
intrepid solicitor and fullil the captain's predictions.
Both Inigo Bright and Lord Middleton had posted
down from London on purpose to be present. Such
an array of medical talent had in all human proba-
bility never attended a single birth in the town before
as might have been seen there that morning. No
prince of the blood royal, it is certain, could have re-
ceived more attention than was accorded the offspring
of the negress Chloe. It was a simple affair to her,
being young and vigorous, and there is every reason
to believe her untutored intellect marvelled much at
the unwonted ceremony.

54

HAROLD.

When it was all over, the three parties most inter-
ested in the success of this most important factor in
their experiment repaired to a private apartment
which the landlord of the establishment placed at their
disposal, and drank the health of John Holland, the
doctors, the new-born infant, and various other persons
and things which seemed momentarily plausible. The
next step was to provide suitable temporary quarters
for the mother and child until the latter's physical
prosperity became assured, which was accordingly
done by the indefatigable old lawyer. Everybody
connected wTith the transaction of the morning was
pledged to secrecy for obvious reasons. The barrister
committed his narrative to paper, and, being duly read
and approved, was treasured among the archives of the
Experiment. It is almost needless to say that that
portion of the narrative relating to Chloe had a
remarkable fascination for Bright.

It will have been observed that in his account the
garrulous old lawyer has most rigorously excluded
everything which treats of the strange and unfortunate
passion bred and subsequently continued by the
negress for his person. The reproachful melancholy
and fits of weeping which marked her existence aboard
the Bellaire were temporarily interrupted by the
birth of her babe. Indeed, from the first she con-
ceived a violent antipathy to her own offspring, and
had to be watched carefully in order that she might
not take it into her head to do the child some injury.

Her strange, one-sided love for the solicitor soon
reasserted itself. From that time forward until the
day of her death she continued to pine away in almost

HAROLD.

55

intermittent silence. The poor woman obstinately
refused to learn a word of the civilized tongue and
happily for her — her new refuge being situate in the
suburbs — failed to create the consternation which her
moods and appearance at times would certainly evoke
from the inhabitants of a more populous neighbor-
hood.

Ohloe died in early summer, shortly after her babe
was weaned. She was buried in a country churchyard
near Cowes, and over her grave was set a stone. It
may be seen at this day, bearing these words :

1NTGRA SED PULCHRA
IIS" UTILITATE ;
IKVITA MIKERVA,
AUXILIATRIX SAPIEKTI^E.

Bequiescat in Pace.

Her death naturally effected the immediate removal
of Harold (as the child was christened, shortly before
leaving Portsmouth) to Dubersly House, the young
lord having decided to take the oft-proffeffed advice
of his physicians and remain abroad. Perhaps he
would never again occupy Dubersly. If he needed a
rural existence in England, he used to say in a jok-
ing way, he would go to Scotland. He could get
a more congenial estate over the Border at a bargain.
But just now the country and country people bored
him and made his physical infirmities seem greater
than they really were. He differed from most in-
valids in that urban atmosphere acted as a sort of
tonic upon his temperament, and London and Paris
in the height of the season, San Carlos, Aix-les-Bains3

56

HAROLD.

and Carlsbad, with their crowds of fashion and their
excitement, always had a soothing smile for him.
During those periods when he made rustic concessions
to his medical men, his tenants, and to his sister,
whose house parties were becoming rapidly popular,
Lord Henry suffered frightful ennui. It may have
been noticed that the young lord was a peculiar
product. Fashionable wits said that Henry Dubersly
would have been a great man if he had not been cut
out for a great invalid. For the rest, it is enough
to say of hirn that without his co-operation, however
whimsical, the remarkable experiment of Mr. Inigo
Bright, herewith under record, might never have been
undertaken.

As for Lady May, his lordship's sister, it was gen-
erally agreed that she was a very charming young
person, whose devotion to her brother was famous far
and wide. Her great friend at Paris, indeed, her old
school friend (afterward the famous Madame de
Salecy), had told her that she was an ingenue, which
was, by the by, a great compliment, coming from the
Frenchwoman.

It was at Paris that her brother, the invalid, had
suddenly fallen in love with his sister's charming
friend. Lady May displayed great tact in averting an
avowal on his part, considering that she was an in-
genue. Her friend was nice and agreeable, to be sure,
but she was a Frenchwoman !

The following year the latter became the wife of
the banker, the Marquis de Salecy.

As for the household at Dubersly, its members were
truly paralyzed over the new advent for the first few

HAROLD,

57

* days, but it was not long before the norms of the
manor obtained their accustomed placidity. Time
slipped by without any incident worthy of record.

For the first year Bright came down regularly from
London, whither he was rapidly laying the founda-
tion for that subsequent fame — a fame which has
resounded throughout all England — and superintended
and directed the child's welfare. Every Saturday
afternoon the housekeeper and the three or four ser-
vants installed in the establishment knew they were
to expect Mr. Bright. They had already come to
regard him as the real master of .Dubersly H'ouse, at
least during such period as the young lord continued
to reside abroad. He habitually questioned each of
the servants closely, more particularly Ellen, the
nurse, concerning the diet and proper airing of little
Harold. Some of the instructions have been faithfully
preserved to this day. They are certainly interesting.

The infant was not to be out-of-doors too much ; its
food was to be of the most delicate variety, sparingly
administered ; its clothing of the softest and lightest
texture ; above all, the nurse was never to omit the
tepid bath twice a day, morning and night.

Other directions were administered of a peculiar
nature, with a view apparently to assoil the infant
from the influences of its paternity. For many weeks
a noted Edinburgh surgeon resided at the manor, and
it is quite worthy of comment that he actually refused
to take a fee for so doing. In conjunction with
Inigo Bright, this person is declared to have per-
formed a series of singular operations upon the tiny
features of the black child.

58

HAROLD.

Much of this has since been denied. There is trust-
worthy evidence, however, to prove that the poor
child's nose was pinched and tweaked to make it
straight, his lips were squeezed to make them thin,
and his legs splintered and rubbed to prevent the
slightest tendency on their part to become bow-shaped !

Between the tortures of having his feet eternally
bandaged to make them small and his hair and eye-
brows shaved to make them thick and straight, little
Harold's existence at this time must have been dis-
tant, indeed, from pleasurable.

But through it all the child perseveringly came, and
at the age of two years was as tine a little English-
man, from an exterior standpoint, as an ingenious
carver could have produced from a block of ebony !

Nor must it be . supposed that Harold's mind, or
rather his sensibilities were neglected, even at so
early an age as three years. He had toys and picture-
books by the score. Such were showered upon hi in
with a prodigality which aimed to accustom him to
personal splendor and the glory of proprietorship.
Ellen Shaw, his nurse, showed herself to be devotedly
attached to her strange little charge. She rarely left
his side for a moment, and fondled and caressed him
with as much tenderness and affection as a black
mother could have shown, or, perhaps, if this simile
be dubious, as if the child had been her own.

The delight which Ellen exhibited at little Harold's
first spoken words, which were forthwith translated
to In igo Bright, was both beautiful and maternal.
The nurse asseverated that the process of ablution
having been brought to a successful close the morning

HAROLD.

59

in question the Infant Harold had uttered, quite dis-
tinctly, these words : " Ess — mamma — Ooo — gar —
lugoo — o—o !"

The which, for fear of misconstruction by her lis-
tener, she hastened to interpret as an expression of
Harold's regard for his foster-mother, who, in his
opinion, was an eminently respectable person. Even
Inigo Bright himself could hardly refrain from de-
claring his thorough satisfaction that the word "love,"
in baby-lore, should be the first to pass the lips of his
prodigy.

A child's lips — portals destined to emit a vast and
mighty train before they are set with the immutable
seal — gay cavalcades, tender pageants, wise proces-
sions, and fierce mobs of words. It were well if the
first to pass through, faltering, doubtful of itself, be
"love."

CHAPTER IX.

11 Coal black is better than another hue,
In that it scorns to bear another hue."

— Titus Andronicus.

Inigo Bright's prodigy continued to develop into
an exceedingly even-tempered, clever child, thus
demonstrating, apparently, that even moral disposition
is only a matter of physical treatment.

Between the ages of three and four Harold learned
to talk rapidly and fluently, and on his fourth birth-
day earned the right to claim and subdue a fine rock-
ing-horse, which his patron, Lord Middleton, thought-
fully despatched from Germany.

During all this period Harold had scarcely seen a
soul apart from those with whom he came in daily
contact. He had, it is true, remarked the village
butcher, whose redness of jowl and fatness of paunch
had from the first elicited his infant admiration.
That Harold was a bright child showed itself daily in
his talk. The many questions with which he loved to
deluge his nurse attested the keenness of his percep-
tion— a faculty which seemed to allow nothing which
carried even the semblance of a ? to elude it. Natu-
rally, the blackness of his skin was among the first
subjects to demand explanation. Inigo Bright had
foreseen this, and almost immediately marvellous
picture-books, especially designed and colored, ex-

HAROLD.

61

hibiting little black maidens and urchins in time-hon-
ored Mother Goose diversions, sprang into being and
became part and parcel of the nursery of Dubersly
House. The rubicund visage of the butcher was thus
emphasized on Harold's mind, and certain vague the-
ories on the non-uniformity of color perplexed his
thoughts.

" 1 think I would rather be black all over than red
in spots, like him, mamma," he observed, quite
gravely, one morning, after a considerable time spent
in a silent weighing of the subject.

One of his favorite queries at this stage was :

" Do black little boy-angels have bkck wings ?"

It is a matter of doubt whether Nurse Ellen was en-
tirely prepared to answer this question of celestial
detail. Albeit she never faltered in her assent.
" Yes, dear," she said. Harold seemed interested.

" Shiny black, mamma? As black as Richelieu,
or only as black as Tray ?"

Richelieu was a cat of which Harold had been ex-
ceedingly fond. One day his ardent affection had
been alienated to a great extent by pussy's Shameless
conduct. He insisted that Richelieu should share his
bath.

" Aren't you 'shame-d of yourself, you dirty, dirty
kitty ? Come and wash, like Harold !"

But Richelieu, callous to the opinion entertained by
mankind, had vigorously declined to be soaped.
After a short struggle, in which Harold was severely
scratched, his master transferred his affection to Tray,
of whose size and shagginess he had previously stood
in some fear. The big Newfoundland, easily capable

62

HAKOLD.

of bearing the child on his back as far as the latter
wished to ride, was thenceforth profoundly attached
to his master, and then and there an inseparable com-
panionship was instituted between the two, to last
until his dogship had passed to that bourne from
which no wise dog or man should elect to return.

After the child of Chloe had passed his fifth year,
the faithful nurse and the aged gardener were wont
to accompany these two friends on long excursions
around the mere and to the berry bushes, which grew
about the northern part of the hedge which bounded
the estate.

It was upon the occasion of one of these walks
that an important incident happened. Believing that
he heard the sound of carriage wheels on the drive-
way, Andrew left the nurse to continue her walk
alone or rest until his return. Ellen, whose orders
were never to venture out without the escort of the
footman or the gardener (exactly for what reason it
would be difficult to say), immediately seated herself on
a rustic bench near by, and, drawing forth some needle-
work from her pocket, commenced to busy herself,
while Harold gambolled without restraint on the path
before her. Something more than simple needle-
work, however, must have engrossed her mind, for,
long before she became aware of it, her eyes were
quite away from her charge. A number of dazzling
butterflies — for it was in the height of summer — had
flitted past little Harold. The temptation was great,
and unconsciously, making no noise on the soft, vel-
vety sod, he sped after them with all the ardor and
enthusiasm of childhood. With Tray bounding before

HAROLD. 63

him he continued to run until he had reached the
great hedge, and remarked the gaudiest object of his
chase disappear serenely over its summit with the
keenest disappointment. Tray, who was even more
thoroughly infected with, the spirit of the occasion,
was not to be balked by such a barrier, and, nosing,
dog-like, about, quickly discovered a crevice, through
which he bounded, and almost immediately returned
to seek his little master. The second time the big-
Newfoundland scurried under the hedge Harold had
preceded him. The child had bounded through the
passage with such vigor and agility, indeed, as to
plant himself plump into the arms of a small boy, on
the very edge of the adjoining domain.

This boy was apparently about three years older
than Harold, which is to say, between eight and
nine. He was a manly, prepossessing little fellow.
The pair were mutually so astonished, that for some
moments they stood stock still, staring at each other
with saucer eyes. Harold, who was the least aston-
ished, recovered first. He did not express any greet-
ing or frame any apology.

" I am not afraid of you !" he said, stoutly ; " I
have seen yotc in my picture-books."

The other boy's first impulse was to run away, and
it was some further moments before he could summon
sufficient equanimity to utter a word. When he did
so, he ejaculated, forcibly :

" My eyes ! What a go !" Then, taking courage
from the fact that his companion did not leap upon
him and consume him by mouthfuls, he repeated
" My eyes !" slowly, amazedly, and thoughtfully

64

HAEOLD.

seven times. The small boy then climbed to the
top of the hedge and let his feet dangle down
from that eminence. At this exploit Harold grew
a trifle embarrassed. He felt he ought to say some-
thing.

" This is Tray !" he said, presently, proffering the
third party at the conference, who immediately set
about wagging his tail with the utmost courtesy of
demeanor.

" Very well," assented the other, indifferently,
u very well ; but, by George ! who are you f"

" Harold. I live here — that is, over there !"
The Experiment pointed a chubby, black finger in the
direction of Dubersly.

The elder boy made no answer to this. He spent
the next few moments in a minute inspection of
Harold's small person. Before this operation was
satisfactorily completed :

" Have you lived over yonder long ?" he inquired.

" Five years," replied Harold, promptly.

The other gave vent to a long, shrill whistle. It
was now Harold's turn to stare. He had never heard
anybody make that kind of a noise before. But he
was too polite to comment.

" Were you — born that way?" resumed the elder
boy, casting a meaning glance at Harold's skin.

"I don't understand you," faltered Harold.
" What way ?"

" Why, black, of course !"

" Yes ; at least, 1 think 1 was. Were you ?" added
Harold, delicately.
" Were 1— what ?"

HAROLD.

65

" Born that way ?"

The other laughed uproariously. There was some
danger of his falling off the hedge.

" Hooray !" he repeated ; " this a lark !" With
that he cast glances about the field and woods, as if it
wTere impossible that he could monopolize so great a
lark much further alone.

u Is your name nicer than mine?" inquired the
Experiment.

" Much nicer," stated that other, with prompt
candor — " Arthur Danthorne."

" Isn't that a little long ?" ventured Harold.

66 Cracky, no ! What's the rest of yours ? Some-
thing besides Harold, ain't there ?"

" I am quite sure there is not !" retorted Harold,
decisively.

The pair conversed for five minutes more, while the
poor nurse, two hundred yards away, was half beside
herself in despair and agitation. Arthur Danthorne
descended at length from his perch, and became quite
friendly and familiar, after having convinced himself
that his new friend was in no way different from any
of the six-year-olds of his Axborough acquaintance,
apart from the remarkable color of his cuticle. He
was certainly a little ignorant, but Master Danthorne
readily untook to enlighten him in the mysteries of
marbles and kite-flying.

" My eyes !" he ejaculated, " but you are queer I"

" Do your — eyes trouble you?" solicited Harold,
with compassion.

" My — bless you, no ! they do not," said Master
Danthorne.

66

HAROLD,

Harold gave a start.

UI must go back to my mamma. She will miss
me," lie said, with a twinge of conscience.

His companion opened his favorite organs wider
than ever this time.

" Your mamma!" he exclaimed. " Is — is she
black, too?"

" No, Arthur Danthorne ; she is pink /"

Arthur looked wistfully around. Some one must
surely behold these cumulative wonders. The sky
remained in place.

" It's too bad ! Are you going ? I shall ask my
grandpapa to let me come over and play with you.
You know, I don't usually play with small boys. /
am nearly nine, you know, and the fellows at Axbor-
ough would laugh a jolly great deal. Good-by, then. "

Whereupon he shook Harold's black hand, which,
black as it was, was softer and more delicate than his
own, and watched him with interest as the Experiment
departed hastily through the crevice in the hedge.

CHAPTER X.

! • Quickness of mind and the charms of conversation are gifts
of nature or the fruits of an education begun in the cradle." —
Balzac.

After his interview with Master Arthur Danthorne
the mind of Inigo Bright's prodigy widened and
began to take a new co]or. He naturally yearned for
companionship.

In the studies of human development which Mr.
Bright had made in the course of his travels, he had
brought himself to a singular conviction. It was
that human character is best moulded or directed at
two distinct vital periods — namely, between the ages
of four and seven and from fourteen to nineteen.

It was his belief that during the foregoing first
period the child should be surrounded by strong adult
influences and apart from recreative companionship.
After the tension has been drawn, a single hour with
a playmate of its own age will suffice to snap it. He
, alluded to what the world called precocity in children,
and observed that the greatest intellects the world has
ever seen are spoken of as being precocious during
this period.

The bent of a child is naturally towrard looseness,
idleness, and volatility, and partial solitude, with a
thorough intellectual environment, is recommended.

68

HAROLD.

Contrary to accepted belief (so ran his views), the most
critical period in tlie life of a healthy child is be-
tween four and seven years. It was then that the
spiritual dough received its leaven, that the twig was
bent. Even the development of the race, he says, in
a more recent pamphlet, is all but the development
of the individual.

In due time Harold's tutor arrived, a clever young
Alsatian, carefully procured by Inigo Bright, with
the assistance of his friend, Lord Middleton. The
name of this tutor Was Felix Schonberg. He had
been a student at Heidelberg, and spoke English quite
faultlessly. He was tall, athletic, with a good-hu-
mored countenance, versatile, rode like Bertalla and
fenced like Da Maitre. After this, what more remains
to be said ? Harold took to him kindly. Schonberg,
for his part, entered into his task with enthusiasm.

" So you read already, eh V he said to Harold.

" I think Thomas Merton was a very disagreeable
boy," observed Harold, by way of reply.

" What books do you like best?" asked Felix,
smiling in spite of himself.

" If you please, I enjoy the 6 Arabian Nights ' very
much, but I like the story of Aladdin best of all."

" Ha, ha !" Herr Schonberg laughed.

Herr Schonberg fell to work.

When August came, the Axborough scholar, on his
vacation, sought in vain for his prospective playmate. 1
Harold was not to be seen. He had his playtime, if
in a somewhat different way. The first year was
almost entirely devoted to deportment. In those
long talks and quiet games with Felix he was really

HAROLD,

69

acquiring much that was to be useful to him in the
attainment of Caucasian culture.

On his seventh birthday, it is related that the little
prisoner was released for a time, and gave a grand
party, at which there were many strange faces, includ-
ing Arthur Danthorne and two little girl cousins of
his lordship. These latter were distinguished by
wide-open eyes and insatiable curiosity.

This occasion, as has been shown, marked the end
of Harold's isolation, and Arthur Danthorne and the
little aristocratic cousins, as well as a youthful pleb
from the village, were often visitors at Dubersly
Manor. There was no longer any reason why the
child should be kept from society ; it was now merely
a question of choosing the society he should mingle in.

This Experiment of Mr. Bright' s had already begun
to be noised in high circles, in which the journalist
had begun to move. Shortly after this Bright left
journalism for a Parliamentary career.

When Lord Shrewsdale and the Hon. Albemarle
Melton came to Dubersly, in the year of grace 187-,
they found a fine, manly, curly-haired English boy of
eight summers. He was polite, sweet-tempered, and
as black as ebony. "When they entered the drawing-
root^, he was standing listening to the crude perform-
ances of Ellen Shaw upon the old-fashioned harpsi-
chord. Harold was so occupied that he did not hear
the door open and Mr. Bright and the two gentlemen
enter. As he turned round and saw them, the child
made a bow profound for one of his years. He came
forward in a captivating way and shook hands with
liis guardian, as he had come to know Inigo Bright.

TO

HAROLD.

"1 am greatly honored to have the pleasure of
meeting your lordship. How do you do, Mr. Mel-
ton ? Shall I ring for some wine ?"

Lord Shrewsdale burst into a peal of uncontrollable
laughter. Harold's face was perfectly grave and he
wore an air of childish dignity.

" What are your studies now, Hal?" asked Mr.
Bright. He knew perfectly well.

" Grammar and history and geography, sir. Mr.
Felix reads to me in the afternoons and then I read
to him. We have read ever so many books that way.
I think, perhaps, you would be pleased to know Mr.
Felix. Don't you think the gentlemen wrould like to
know my tutor, Uncle Inigo ?"

" I dare say the gentlemen would, Hal. In a half
hour you may return with him. Run along now for
your walk."

" 1 can hardly believe my senses !" exclaimed Lord
Shrewsdale, with emotion, when the black child had
left the room. " Why, he has the gentleness and
bearing of a duke's son ! I would take him for all the
world to be an Englishman !"

" Is he not ?" asked Albemarle Melton. " 1 own,
for one, 1 am already converted to the doctrine of
organic equality. But, good Heavens ! what becomes
of race superiority ?"

" Never fear," returned the new M.P. ; "it will
always exist. The past is the past. Pride of blood
will ever be pride of blood. You know our modern
proverb about machine-made goods. The gold that
the alchemist will make offhand out of clay will ever
be held inferior to that compounded by nature.3'

HAROLD. 71

•

"Yet 'twill pass 'Change as well. But you are
right, the coarsest hand-made lace is deemed far more
precious than the finest products of the machine."

" Yes," reflected Lord Shrewsdale, as he journeyed
back to Westminster ; <£ if this black child fulfils the
promise he now shows, our old notions are shattered !
One might have suspected that education would have
tamed the savage blood in him somewhat ; that in his
shallow brain learning might somehow have been
pounded like it was into Darwin's Fuegans ; but that
he should take kindly to it, that he should develop
gentleness and even manliness — well, it's astounding,
that's all !"

66 I don't see why it is any more marvellous for the
son of a savage to become a savant than for the son
of a savant to grow up a savage and feed on roots and
shrubs. It is all a matter of health. One could
change a man's whole nature if his mind wrouldn't
give way under the operation. The danger in both
cases is that the subject will go off his hooks. Bright
will yet have an idiot on his hands."

Such was Hon. Albemarle Melton's commentary
solus.

Among the friends of his childhood to whom
Harold became sincerely attached was Robert Ellis, a
boy of his own age, who had lost both his parents by
consumption. He was himself pale and sickly, and
evidently not destined long for this world. His uncle
was a writer on one of the great London dailies, eking
out the paltriest of pittances. Inigo Bright fell upon
l|im, and he secured the friendship of that rising man.
When Inigo heard of the misfortune which had be-

HAROLD,

fallen the boy, he was at once for carrying him off to
Dubersly House, which plan, his fellow-journalist
gladly agreeing, was quickly effected. The two boys
became from the first mutually fond of each other.
Robert was tender, sympathetic, and fonder of study
than of violent sport, which made robust little Harold
look upon him with compassion, as the strong will
look upon the weak. Harold could now ride almost
as well as Herr Felix, and indulged freely in all sorts
of out-door exercise. Robert looked upon these feats
with admiration, and never tired of applauding Hal's
skill. Strange as it may seem, it never once entered
his mind that there was any difference of caste be-
tween him and his comrade. The fact that Harold
was a negro seemed to heighten his attraction and
make him still more out of the common. In fact,
this may not be wondered at much. In Liverpool,
where the Ellis family had resided, the neighborhood
was not conspicuous for anything besides a horde of
small ruffians, whose parents were generally too de-
voted to their warehouses and avocations to pay much
attention to the manner in which their children com-
ported themselves out of school hours. A white boy
of Harold's mien and accomplishments would, it is
certain, have been a prodigious phenomenon.

So time went on until one day the announcement
came that Lord Middleton had decided upon a return
to England. It was whispered that the medical
fraternity had finally given him up, and that he came
home for the simple boon of dying on English
soil.

And; indeed, it was only a wreck of his former self

HAROLD,

73

that the cheering villagers saw lifted from his carriage
one day and come halting on the arm of his sister
and his friend Bright into the halls of his ancestors.
Harold was on the steps with the rest of the house-
hold, and his lordship had patted him on the head and
shaken his hand with evident delight and amazement.
He had heard much of his progress and he had the
boy's likeness — which, it is interesting to know, had
been taken thrice before he was ten — often before him
in the apartments at Wiesbaden and Carlsbad. Dur-
ing the next few weeks Harold was his sole recreation.
It beat any four physicians in Europe, his lordship
used to say, laughing, to hear the young savage, who
should have been making a good meal off a broiled
missionary by this time, decline Latin nouns by the
stringful.

Harold's droll account of the manner in which he
and Robert caught a hare — tied twenty yards of twine
to its leg and let it go — sent Lady May and himself
into peals of merriment. To see Harold ride his
pony, he declared, was the best thing, upon his honor,
since Astley's. As his lordship grew weaker, he was
never so much entertained as when Harold was read-
ing to him stories from 66 Tom Jones" or " Humphrey
Clinker," or, perhaps, the " Arabian Nights" or
" Robinson Crusoe," all of which his favorite vol-
umes, previously expurged and amended by Inigo
Bright. One day his lordship said :

u I must have had a presentiment that my share in
your experiment, Inigo, would prove wholly selfish.
It is as if you had trained something to amuse me.
Do you know, I thought I should have burst to-day

74

HAROLD.

when the rascal gravely asked me if T did not consider
Crusoe's man Friday a beast. He and his tribe should
have been ' ashamed of themselves for going about
naked, ' said he. By no means, my dear Inigo, abate
a jot of his education on my account."

" I told you, Middleton, that I was offered the
Berlin consulship last month. I refused it. My ■
book on the Afghan question has brought me a thou-
sand pounds. My share in the Morning Gazette
brings me that a year."

"You prosper, old fellow. But I hope you do
not mean that the boy is becoming costly— that I had
better save my money for my heirs ?"

Bright was silent.

" Indeed," continued Lord Middleton, merrily, " I
may as well inform you that 1 am very fond of this
child. I have left him a matter of thirty thousand
in my will."

u But my ! — " began the other with a flashed brow.

" Tut, tut, there ! I wish it. It is better there
than with a couple of country cousins whom I have
scarcely ever seen. The long line of Dubersly steps
down and out when I perform that diverting cere-
mony."

Inigo did not protest further. He was secretly and
outwardly delighted. But he had other matters which
claimed his attention more fully. His speech on the
Canadian Loans had attracted attention throughout the
whole kingdom. He was half glad that the weight of
the Experiment had been thus taken off his hands.

One fine morning in early May Henry Dubersly,

HAROLD,

V75

Marquis of Middleton, was found dead in his bed.
His valet averred lie had been awake the entire night,
but that his lordship had expired without a sound.
Harold felt instinctively that he had lost a friend and
patron. He experienced loss by the hand of death the
first time. Harold was then in his twelfth year.

When the will was opened after his lordship's
death, it was found that he had judiciously made the
bequest to the child of Chloe in the name of Inigo
Bright, to be held in trust for the former at the
nominal legatee's sole discretion. The rest of the
estate went to his lordship's sister, barring a bequest
of two thousand pounds "to the widow of John
Holland (otherwise Mrs. Hope Walworth), lately de-
parted this life.' '

In the autumn Harold was taken to London by
Herr Felix for the first time. He was grown a fine
lad. There was no sign of the intellectual collapse
suggested by Mr. Albemarle Melton. He was quick-
witted to a degree. It is a singular fact, however,
that he rarely indulged in laughter. His broad brow
would never have betokened the Ethiop. His hair,
cut close, had a coarse, becoming curl.

Those who saw him wondered if it were not possi-
ble, after what had been done, to make his ebony
skin white. Lord Shrewsdale, who viewed him again,
declared on his oath that it would be no whit more
remarkable.

After a season in London Harold returned to Du-
bersly, and the next few years were passed in the
shadow of the manor, with scarcely an incident.
Herr Felix never seemed to weary of his pupil, but

76

HAROLD,

he was settling down into those mature German ways,
proverbial with males of the Empire, after passing
their thirty-fifth birthday.

Harold did not really emerge from his obscurity
until he became of age.

Mr. Bright had planned a long continental tour for
him, and, agreeably to this, he departed from the
shores of his native land on the day following his
twenty-first birthday.

CHAPTER XI.

" WherefQre base ?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous and my shape as true
As honest madam's issue ? Why brand they me
With base ? with baseness V'

— King Lear.

Dubeeslt House, October 16, 188-.
Dearest Danthoene : You cannot even imagine
how glad I am to have gotten away from London at
last. Of course it has been an uninterrupted round
of pleasure — hobnobbing, as the expression goes, with
dukes and earls, constancy to theatre parties and ball-
rooms, and visits to places of interest, with absolutely
no study. Yet it has all been so unreal, so unaccus-
tomed and strange, that I have been in a semi-febrile
state from the moment the whole nightmare began.
And yet Mr. B. says I have comported myself admi-
rably. He also compliments Herr F. on his talents
as a dancing-master. I have not had time actually to
think. Those eight months in London seem eight
long years to me this bright autumn morning as I look
back over them. Oh ! Danthorne, I know I have no
right, after all that Mr. B. has done for me since my
parents died, to be ungrateful, but sometimes I wish
< — I wish — I could meet and know a man or woman
who did not wear a white shin. I suppose it is some-
thing within yearning for expression that impels me
to mean and ungrateful thoughts sometimes. I feel

78

HAROLD.

then, old fellow, that I would willingly give up half
my fortune and education to be able to wash the
accursed blackness out of my flesh. "When in my
more' rational moods, however, I know that it is
because I am not among my own people, or rather
the people of my fathers, that I am thus affected. It
seems trivial, perhaps, but the Queen of Hawaii,
whom I met at the Earl of L — 's reception the other
evening, seemed thoroughly happy and contented and
not anxious to have any other hue than her own.

I wonder if it isn't vanity, anyway ? Half the
ladies in London cover their faces so insufferably with
rouge, that they may have green or purple skins for
all the rest of us know. You know, Danthorne, I am
a thorough Saxon, and, after all, I don't suppose I'd
be content, if I had any option in the matter, with
even being white-skinned and black- whiskered, like a
Frenchman ; I should want a blond pate as well.

But why does F. keep me so confined in my knowl-
edge of my father's race. To be sure, I know that
he {mon pere) was an Abyssinian gentleman and a
member of the Abyssinian Parliament, who emigrated
to England with my mother. She died shortly after
losing him and when I was only six months old. I
have read over and over again a book about Abyssinia
that Mr. Bright gave me, too, arid I cannot see that
life there differs much from life in England. I fancy
it must be pleasanter, because so few leave their coun-
try. Mr. B. fears, perhaps, that I should be seized
with some romantic notion, d la Prince Rasselas, to
leave England, because he tells me very little about
my own fatherland. The other day I heard some-

HAROLD.

79

thing about a great colony of black people (probably
Abyssinians) in America, and when I asked about them
further, the gentleman who was talking appeared em-
barrassed, and said he was but slightly informed on
the subject.

Now, my dear Arthur, for a further confidence,
for I know I can trust you. I dare not tell Mr. B.,
but a great change has just come over my life. I am
terribly in love— yes, in love with the most charming
woman I ever met. Her name is Mabel Yere, and I
met her first at a reception which I attended with
Mr. B. She is, besides, one of the cleverest girls in
England, and took a mathematical prize at Oxford
over the heads of the male wranglers. Everybody is
talking about her. The whole of the first evening
she did nothing but sit by me and talk mathematics
and literature. It seemed so odd that she should have
found the other people so stupid as to let me monopo-
lize her until supper-time. I wonder if she knew
how much I admired her. By the by, everybody
appears to know me wherever I go in London. 1
suppose that is because I am the ward of Inigo Bright.
I fancy many would be only too glad to change
places with your very humble servant ; but, to tell the
truth, I never was very happy after leaving dear old
Dubersly until I met Mabel Yere. I have seen her a
dozen times since then (I could wish it a thousand),
and each time she has been so kind to me and ap-
peared to me so beautiful, that it has been as much
as I could do, old fellow, to keep from falling down
and telling her what was in my heart then and there — -
just, I suppose, as the hero-princes used to do in the

so

HAROLD.

olden times (according to the fairy tales). Now I
have left London, what am I to do ? — about Mabel
Vere, I mean ? Would you advise me to tell Mr. B.
first ? I suppose that would be the best course. But,
then, I am quite sure that he has other plans for me —
perhaps to have me espouse a woman of my own race.
They may be a very charming people, those Abys-
sinians, but I don't think any of their women could
ever be to me what Mabel Vere is. " Fiddlesticks /"
you will say to all this. Nevertheless, I feel much
better, now that I have told you all. I don't care if
you do laugh at my presumption in thinking Miss
Vere cares for me and make light of my passion. I
think I know my duty, however, in spite of what I
have said. You know I go on the continent in a
couple of months. I think 1 wrote you to that effect
in my last letter.

Well, my dear Danthorne, there is no news here at
Dubersly to relate, so I may as well finish off this ab-
surd letter without further ceremony.

Yours, as ever,

Harold Bright.

Arthur Daxthorne, Esq.

London, November 3, 188-.

Dear Danthorne : I wonder what it all means !
What is it you have been hiding from me ? I came
up to London last week. I told Mr. B. that I in-
tended calling on the Veres, and he told me that I
must not. Why is it that I am not allowed to move
about in the world except as a prisoner ? To be sure,
I am not yet of age, but is he fearful that I will be

HAROLD.

81

assassinated ? But enough of this. I met Miss Vere
last night at a reception, and could contain myself no
longer. At my very first words she turned so pale,
and appeared — if I can bring my pen to write the
term — horror-stricken ! It seems to me now that if
some wild beast had sprung suddenly before her, the
expression of her countenance could not have been so
very different. It wTas at a dark end of the balcony,
and the spot was deserted except by us two. I feared
from her countenance that she was going to call for
help. My blood almost froze in my veins as I saw
her thus recoil from me. But as we approached the
light from one of the conservatory windows her con-
duct changed, and I saw 1 had not been deceived
when I believed Mabel Yere to be a thoroughly sin-
cere and self-possessed girl. I need not tell you all
she said, but she told me enough to make me under-
stand that I had made a huge mistake. Her manner
was all kindness and compassion, and I have no doubt
she spoke sensibly ; but it angered and irritated me to
such an extent that I was quite beside myself, and
begged her for God's sake to stop. I saw her once
again during the evening, and noted the peculiar ex-
pression of her eyes. She seemed to be lost in won-
der, and regarded me with a mixture of pity and curi-
osity. I wonder myself if she thought me a doll or a
waxwork to be played with and smiled at, as if human
emotions were the last things in the world she fancied
me endowed with.

# * -jf * # *

I have begged my guardian to hasten the period

82

HAROLD.

when my studies shall cease and I shall have departed
for two years of continental travel. I trust it may
be some time in January.

Adieu, my dear Danthorne, until we meet.

As ever,

H. B.

CHAPTER XII.

" Desdemona. "Well praised ! How if (he) be black and witty ?"

— Othello.

Harold Bright was the first of his race to enter
the brilliant Paris salon of Madame Salecy. He
crossed the threshold with a step firm and graceful.
It was natural that a murmur of astonishment should
escape such an assemblage of wit, learning, and
beauty. A similar phenomenon had not been seen in
Paris for many a day. Harold's bearing was aristo-
cratic to the full. He made his entrance arm-in-arm
with Arthur Danthorne, the playmate and friend of
his childhood. Danthorne was well known to Madame
Salecy' s circle, where his excellent good nature and his
talents were quite as well appreciated as at the embassy.

To the right, as the two friends entered, stood a
little group of four men, English with one exception.
A tiny red ribbon adorned the button-hole of the
exception, no other than the famous General Louis
Legarde.

As Harold Bright and his friend Danthorne ap-
proached this group, one of the four started forward
and shook the attache by the hand. He was the
youngest person in the present circle, if one might
judge by features, complexion, and manner. He
gave the impression of a litterateur. The others
were lay civilians.

84

HAROLD.

"Remington,'' exclaimed Danthorne, " let me in-
troduce to you Mr. Harold Bright. Harold, Mr.
Julius Remington, the author of 'Palaces Fair' and
i Herr Utopia,' undisputably the hooks of the year."

Remington flushed at this fulsome compliment.
He shook Harold's hand warmly. His two compan-
ions went through the handshaking part of the pres-
entation with a sort of dazed courage. They had
never done such a thing before ; it was like saluting
their coachman. "Mais, qui a peur f" they ap-
peared to ask themselves ; evidently it was a case of
" follow my leader."

The Frenchman grunted his astonishment when he
heard Harold's name pronounced. His suspicions
having been pointed toward a Haytian diplomat, it
is almost unnecessary to say his sensibilities were little
prepared for the impression of grace and dignity
which the black made upon him. He stared, stroked
his pointed beard, and bowed.

" May I ask if I am speaking to a Haytian ?" he
inquired in French.

" I am an Englishman," Harold replied, simply.

It was the turn of the two civilians to stare.

What masquerading Ethiop was this, who had the
impudence to call himself Englishman !

They felt inclined to laugh, but immediately re-
pressed the inclination, and looked upon Danthorne's
friend with extreme compassion. Remington appeared
fascinated, an extraordinary interest which he essayed
to hide by a commonplace remark addressed to his
newly made acquaintance.

" Have you been many days in Paris ?" he asked.

HAROLD.

85

" I arrived yesterday with my comrade and tutor,"
replied Harold. 66 We are contemplating a year or
two of travel."

" Indeed," said Remington.

" Mr. Bright is modest in setting forth his plans,"
Danthorne hastened to say ; " he is to bring all parts
of three continents within his visionary scope — in
tarn. I can only add I envy him."

During this colloquy General Legarde had recov-
ered his voice and was about to speak. At this mo-
ment every head was suddenly turned, and Madame
de Salecy was seen entering the room. A number of
charming young ladies in ravishing toilettes accom-
panied her, among them being the famous Baronne
Zweifollern, who chanced to preside over a salon of
her own in Berlin. The eyes of Madame de Salecy
roamed over the company, as if seeking for some one.
The hostess was of medium height. Her hair was jet
black and her complexion a pale olive. Her smile,
distinctly feminine and winning, suffused a counte-
nance that had much of imperiousness and high intel-
lectual power. Her glance rested upon Harold Bright,
and she swept rapidly toward him with her dazzling
retinue. It was at this crisis that General Louis
Legarde made a quick step forward with a glow of
pleasure.

" Ah, madame, c'est un plaisir— " he began.

" A moi aussi, general," interrupted the lady,
coolly ; "metis, vous rtetes pas le lion ce soir-ci.
Voila ! Have you met — pardon — Will Mr. Dan-
thorne present me to one I already know F3

It was a rule of Madame de Salecy's to hold and

86

HAROLD.

not to attend receptions. Like a famous predecessor
of hers, she often made advances to those whose
society she desired to cultivate. In this case she was
the one woman in Europe beyond the Channel who
knew of this protege of Lord Middleton's — this sub-
ject of the celebrated Inigo Bright. Perhaps she
never forgot how near she once came to being Mar- *
chioness of Middleton.

With a turn for the same science and experimentia
with which they had been animated, her curiosity was
now elevated to the highest pitch. It was not to be
disappointed. No courtier or cavalier of the times of
Elizabeth or Louis le Grand ever rose more thoroughly
or completely to the occasion. Harold even kissed
her hand.

u 1 am flattered," he said, with the most faultless
accent — " flattered beyond my deserts ; much more,
madame, I feel sure, than my poor merit demands."

This last phrase was spoken in such dulcet tones
that everybody but Madame de Salecy took it for a
compliment. Her quick wit detected a reproof, and
she felt herself glow with enhanced interest.

" Pas d'automaton," she thought, as she presented
le sable Anglais to the company.

Le sable Anglais Harold forthwith became for a
time. As for the poor General Legarde, he was over-
whelmed with confusion. A portion of his embarrass-
ment and chagrin may, perhaps, have rested in the
fact of his recent return from Africa — a fact which
may readily be recalled by an astute reader of the
newspapers.

As for the ladies of the salon, they surrounded

HAROLD.

87

Harold. Some admired his magnificent physique,
which his immaculate, close-fitting attire served ill to
conceal. Others delighted in his flow of language
and his quick wit. His tapering fingers were an
anomaly ; his clear, sable complexion, his pleasing
smile, his finely shaped head, and, above all, the
uniqueness of the occasion proved an attraction like
to no other which had ever graced the doors of
Theresa Louise Marie Salecy.

" Est-ce reel," whispered one young lady to an-
other ; 66 vous etes sur, ce n'est pas tout un chapitre
de Gulliver?"

" And which are we," returned her friend, gayly,
" the giants or the pigmies V '

"Voila! pour replique," laughed Mademoiselle
Blanc ; " are we not binding him fast with cords ?"

" And the mistake of choosing dwarfs for giants,"
broke in Madame Salecy at her elbow, having over-
heard the colloquy with a smile, "I never commit.
Pigmies are never seen in my salon, n'est-ce pas ?"

But, in truth, Madame Salecy, intrepid as she was,
had felt nervous when she determined to greet Harold
in public. Now mingled with her gratified surprise
was naturally a feeling of profound relief. The
novelty somewhat worn off, she left her guest to his
own devices or those of his friends, and went to meet
the captivating Signor d'Artili, who had promised
faithfully to render several waltzes of his own imper-
ishable composition upon the violin.

A new experience broke thus upon the horizon of
Harold Bright, and one which he bore well and with
equanimity. He took pride in thinking that his char-

88

HAROLD.

acter was asserting itself. For the moment he forgot
Mabel Yere. At supper, perhaps, he forgot her com-
pletely. He sat at the right of his hostess, and Ma-
dame Salecy monopolized his attention completely.

" Travelling is very romantic," she observed. She
purposely spoke in a loud tone that all. might hear.

" Is it?" asked Harold, not unconscious that fifty
pairs of eyes were fastened upon him. " For the
first time, madame, yes ; it is like a voyage of dis-
covery. When one has read much of the travels of
others it is merely like reading a play and seeing it
acted."

" The drama of travel," laughed Madame Salecy.

" As for real voyages of discovery," resumed Har-
old, w they are no longer possible. Xow that Stanley
and Livingstone have opened up Africa, every school-
boy can describe to you with irreverent familiarity all
the nooks and corners of the once great unfathomable
globe."

Remington heard the remark across the table. It
would have surprised Harold to be told how little he
himself knew of the world to which he so glibly
referred.

"And all the romance is gone," said Remington,
" the delicious speculation we used to attach to the
tales of travellers."

" Et le pauvre Capitaine Cook !" laughed the fair
hostess ; " must he stay at home ?"

" Oli, no," retorted Remington ; " he can go to the
Korth Pole !"

"And freeze to death," growled M. Bristhoff, of
the Russian Legation. " I detest romance. We of

HAROLD.

89

the nineteenth century are not children to be amused
with fairy tales. Thank Heaven, the writers of to-day
are in a better business."

cc So much the worse for the writers of to-day and
us," broke in Harold, in his frank, boyish tones, and
with a quick glance at Remington; u your realists
are making the horizon of life smaller than it really
is. This is a broad and a hale world, and every man
is right to love the romance of others. 1 have heard
it said our lives are never romances to ourselves."

The Russian coughed.

"Now, Tolstoi—"

"A narrow soul," exclaimed Remington, warmly ;
" one who has discovered a system of literary alchemy
by which virtue is really turned into a synonyme for
vice. This man deserves the distinction of being the
greatest dupe of himself that ever lived."

" You entertain pronounced views, Mr. Reming-
ton," said Madame Salecy, after a general silence at
that end of the table. " And what do you think of
our M. Zola?"

" A tolerable photographer, madame. He points
his apparatus at the Parisians, and they are delighted
with the cold, flat, expressionless print. He does not
paint. There is no warmth, no pulsating color in his
works. Daguerre amused and startled them the same
way. I prefer light and shadows and the warmth of
color — in short, art. Zola is the first of a school, and
attracted attention. Unfortunately that is the distinc-
tion he will leave to posterity. A horde is already
following."

Madame de Salecy frowned a little. She did not

90

HAROLD.

intend that Mr. Remington should monopolize the
talk and denounce her favorites. She engaged Har-
old on the subject of the drama.

Then ensued a more or less diverting discussion on the
•merits of the various French and English dramatists,
upon which theme Harold appeared especially at ease.

Upon the whole, Madame de Salecy was as much *
astonished at the breadth of her protege's knowledge
as she was at the vigor of his opinions.

CHAPTER XIII.

" Betwixt us and the crowning race."

— Tennyson.

Harold arrived at his hotel very late from Madame
de Salecy's. Walker, his valet, was ready to receive
him and help him disrobe.

" Where is Mr. Felix ?" he asked, as Walker began
busying himself over his master's discarded attire.
Ketired just this half hour, sir."

This was the first time since Harold could remember
that he had been left to return home unescorted by
either tutor or guardian.

" Do you wish to be called in the morning, sir?"
continued Walker, as his master signified his desire to
be alone.

"No, Walker; I don't think we have made any
engagement before three. Good-night."
The valet retired.

The season at Paris was as lively and as full of inci-
dent as any man could wish — even the most bored of
London society people.

Before twenty-four hours had passed over the heads
of the inhabitants of the capital Harold became a lion.
Rumors concerning him had flitted from the Rue
du Poires to the Champs de Mars, and flitted back
again. Figaro christened him the Black Prince.
The wits crowded in upon Madame de Salecy to inquire
what Cassiopeia her protege was seeking. Marvellous

92

HAROLD.

flashes of wit and wisdom were attributed to liim. It
wras " Have you heard ?" and " The Black Prince has
said it." The children who saw him in the Champs
got up brand-new fairy tales among themselves, in
which le -prince noir and le roi Blackamoor figured
heroically. The professional comedians referred to
him in their nocturnal sallies ; the illustrated weeklies
printed what professed to be his portrait. Could
fame do more ? No.

Out of le monde, one tenth of the Parisians who
saw him in the Bois, dashing along on his natty Eng-
lish cob, believed him an Abyssinian nabob. The
other nine tenths really suspected him to be a dandy
of the faubourg, whose madman's caprice had taken
the form of blacking his face in order to get himself
talked about.

Every day Felix Schonberg, as punctually as clock-
work, entered an account of the day's proceedings in
a small volume provided by his employer, Mr. Bright,
and which was subsequently to come under his inspec-
tion. Some of the entries which Herr Felix made at
this time would have cost Harold a pang of humilia-
tion had he known of it.

If the Experiment had remained long in Paris both
might have come off with palled sensibilities. At last
the shrewd tutor and companion perceived that Ma-
dame de Salecy was growing weary of replying to in-
finite questions relating to his charge. Six weeks had
already elapsed. He decided that he and Harold
should post off to Marseilles.

Harold had, in a very natural way, when one con-
siders his manner of education, unconsciously fallen

HAROLD.

93

into the habit of perfect acquiescence in all plans and
propositions involving himself. Although he was
now past man's estate and the legal possessor of a
small fortune, it never once occurred to him to pro-
test against the domination of one whom he knew to
be a hired dependent, paid from his own funds.
Felix Schonberg, on the other hand, had the common
propensity of his countrymen to acquire ways from
the nature of their surroundings and to grow set in
those ways. He looked upon Harold very much as
the product of his own handiwork, not altogether
void of volition, perhaps, but with a will at all times
subservient to his own. This arrangement had so far
been satisfactory to both.

" The present is not the best time to visit Paris,"
said Madame de Salecy, at parting with her protege,
"but I hope you have enjoyed yourself and found
the Parisians hospitable."

Harold could not have complained on that score.
It would take a huge volume to relate the conversa-
tions and entertainments he participated in during his
stay in the French capital. He had been present at a
Presidential reception, where he met many distin-
guished statesmen. He had attended sessions of the
Chamber of Deputies and conversed with the delegates.
He went to the Theatre Frangais to witness a new play
by a master dramatist, and smoked a cigar with its
author afterward. A renowned painter had begged for
a sitting, and afterward presented Harold with a cop}r
of the sketch he then made. In short, if he had not
seen more of Paris than one tourist in a thousand does, he
had seen much more of what was really worth seeing.

94

HAROLD.

At Marseilles they stayed longer — two months
(making frequent excursions into the interior) — in order
to get a more perfect idea of France sans Paris, and
also to acquire a knowledge of provincial customs.
Thence to Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin. Here at Berlin
the Reichstag was in session, and Harold encountered
statesmen and warriors whose names were familiar
words throughout Europe. The name, too, of Inigo
Bright was a talisman which secured him everything.

The young and radical " rising hopes" of the German
Empire especially interested Harold. They talked of
politics as they would of a play. Bismarck was to
them a great actor — a great artist. Several of these
young persons condemned the whole piece inconti-
nently. Some said it was a farce, others called it
tragedy. The freedom of speech which they em-
ployed in discussing political affairs w^ould be consid-
ered a liberal education by most young diplomats.

At a certain dinner given by the young Baron Stiltz,
Harold and Herr Felix were present. This is the
groove in which the talk ran on during the repast :

" Depend upon it, this Leopold deserves watching.
It is all very well for mein Herr Chancellor to pretend
there is nothing intended but what appears on the
surface. The King of the Belgians is too shrewd a
man to throw away the crown millions for humanita-
rian purposes or speculatively on a patch of African
territory. ' '

" Why should he not?" observed another young
gentleman, in answer to the first speaker. "It is
because he is shrewd that he invests in fruits and

HAROLD,

95

ivory. He has just as good a right as we or the
English to appropriate the territory."

"Why did you not say better?" asked another,
sarcastically. " What I want to know is, why
bhould not Germany control Middle Africa as Great
Britain controls Central India ; why do all these
colonial schemes of promise turn out worthless ? You
must be aware that the Emperor looks with distrust
upon King Leopold, and thinks the Chancellor is to
blame. And as for me, I think the Emperor is right."

" Oh ! Leopold is up with the times. He believes
wars of invasion and aggression are things of the
past, and has gone in to conquer vast territory on a
reform basis. That railroad of his will win the heart
of every black-skinned savage in the interior. In a
few years, my friends, Europe may be edified by the
sight of an army of a million of d — d black niggers."

The young Baron Stiltz was on his feet in an in-
stant.

"Pardon P\ he said, meaningly, " but I hope you
will not use that term again."

Every eye in the company, as if by magic, centred
upon Harold Bright. A scene was expected, but the
Experiment had not been paying attention.

Observing himself an object of the guests' gaze,
Harold immediately jumped at a conclusion.

" What's up % Do they want me to make a speech ?"

The speaker did not finish, and a murmur ran
round the company which shortly afterward broke
up. Niggers ! QvD est-ce que c*est que cela ?

Pah ! Harold Bright could make nothing of it.

CHAPTER XIY.

" 0 Paradox ! Black is the badge of hell,

The hue of dungeons and the scowl of night."

— Shaeespeake.

Harold Bright and Lis tutor spent some months
abroad without having yet stirred beyond the bounda-
ries of Europe.

One day an American entered the corridor of the
Hotel di Continent^ at Nice, and approached the
landlord's office to transact some slight business. The
host was engaged for the moment with another guest.
With a polite gesture he begged the American to be
seated. The latter acquiesced with equal politeness,
but at that instant catching a glimpse of the third
occupant of the apartment, he half rose in his chair,
turned very pale, and directed a glance half of vexa-
tion and half of anger at the proprietor of the Hotel
di Continenti. The proprietor was at a loss to inter-
pret the demeanor of his guest, and assuming that he
wTas taken suddenly ill, or that something extraordinary
had transpired, left Harold, to remark solicitously :

" Pardon, sen or, but is there anything — ?"

The American seemed too choked with anger for a
moment to speak.

" I thought — I understood you to say you were
engaged !" he said, in a suppressed voice.

The other answered :

HAROLD.

97

u Dio grande i But so 1 was, sen or. "
" Bat the guest !"

" The guest ! The guest ! Ah, I perceive, you
have not met ! You — "

" Sir," exclaimed the American, u this is an in-
sult ! You must be mad ! Explain yourself — imme-
diately !"

u But — but, senor, I have nothing to explain."

" Order my baggage down immediately, sir !" ex-
claimed the other. "I shall leave this house, sir !"
Then he added : " By God ! this insult shall cost you
dear !"

"Insult?" gasped the bewildered host. " But,
senor — will not senor explain ?"

In answer the American deigned to point his finger
at Harold.

" Do you allow that to be a guest at this house and
take precedence of a white man ?" he demanded —
nay, almost shrieked.

Harold, at the first intimation that he was con-
cerned in this outburst, sprang to his feet and gave
vent to a natural exclamation of indignation and sur-
prise.

A turbulent scene ensued, at the end of which the
American demanded his account, duly followed his
chattels to the street, and left the house.

Poor Harold, stunned, uneasy, bewildered, ascended
to his apartments, heedless of the landlord's apologies
and the onlookers' mute looks of inquiry.

* * * * * ^

An annual festival of the city of Nice is just about
to begin. The streets are crowded with innumerable

98

HAROLD.

shoppers and merrymakers, and the spirit of the ap-
proaching carnival already infuses itself into every
one who stirs abroad. As has been traditional in
Nice for centuries, all is laughter, license, and liber-
ality, and the lazzeroni not only have the incredible
effrontery to grin into the countenance of the prince
patron, but the usual haughty demeanor of the entire
aristocracy becomes softened into an aspect of indul-
gent and even jocular familiarity. Giggling maidens
and children carry baskets of flowers through the
narrow streets, or stand with them done up into fra-
grant nosegays on half the street corners in Nice, and
everybody buys. Englishmen and Americans have
apparently taken the city by storm. They swarm in
and out of the hotels and villas, and promenade the
squares and plazas brave in tweed suits and formidable
walking-sticks, no longer, as of yore, the combined
objects of wonder and terror to the native population.
They quiz the flower-girls ; they throw pennies to
the street gamin. The ladies of the foreign in-
vasion ride about in barouches, and marvel at those
perennial Italian characteristics--sunshine, color, and
dirt.

Meantime, as these scenes are progressing without,
the noise of a man pacing with heavy, erratic foot-
steps might be heard on the hotel balcony. Up and
down — ceaselessly — up and down — for more than an
hour. Immediately after the strange scene in the
office Harold had gone direct to his roomD His brain
was literally on fire, and he felt the chamber small
even to suffocation. This was the first time in his
life that he had received a gross oral insult, and

HAROLD.

99

brought up as he had been, it would have been diffi-
cult for any man to rally so directly as to be able to
strike a blow or demand apology for the insult re-
cei ved.

In Harold's case, the indignity fell upon a mind
already morbidly tortured by introspection.

Since the incident which happened at dinner in Ber-
lin he had begun what was destined to be a long and
painful course of sensibility. He fancied that he
caught at meanings in the conversation of acquaint-
ances which had none other than that intended, and
began to be painfully alive to the fact that something
was being persistently hidden from him by his com-
panion, Felix Schonberg, and a great wrong done him
by Inigo Bright. The encounter with the American
pointed to a confirmation of all that he had vaguely
feared. He flung out of the room with his brain on
fire, and, not daring to trust himself in the street,
began pacing the long, narrow balcony. This struc-
ture ran the entire width of the fagade.

" You infernal black nigger !" the American had
ejaculated in his wrath ; " what do you mean by
addressing a white man ?"

The brutal words were as yet incomprehensible in
their more sinister significance. Nevertheless, they
seemed to have burned themselves into his brain. He,
at first, began by repeating them over in a dazed sort
of way, until he had exhausted their superficial im-
port. Then he began to grapple with speculation.
The assault had been entirely unprovoked. The
American had appeared thoroughly rational and civil
until his eye had fallen upon himself. Then, with

100

HAROLD.

unspeakable disgust and indignation limned on his
features, lie had arisen and —

Harold grew deathly sick at heart. The restless
shadow of doubt which had thrown itself across his
path even before he had left England now assumed
horribly fantastic proportions. He had sometimes
wondered if he were not some horrible monster, tracta-
ble by education, but from which men shrunk with
loathing ; that they did so, fearing contamination or
doubting the stability of the change. If there was
some ghastly mystery which hung over his life, he
could not even in his calmer moments understand why
Inigo Bright had caused him to leave England to
suffer in spirit among strangers. To harden him
through suffering ? Why, then, did he not reveal
the whole truth to him and let him accustom himself
to ignominy ?

Harold had his share of pride, and he knew that
whatever he was, or in whatever light men might hold
him, he was at least their intellectual equal and more
often their superior. Perhaps he was the result of
some physiological phenomenon, brought about by
some shameful sexual agency. Perhaps — but no, it
could not be ! With his own vision he had seen men
and women having black skins courted and apparently
esteemed.

u Whe?i you return," wrote Inigo Bright, " 1 will
explain all that which appears to trouble you. In
the mean time, he patient."

God — be patient ! It was well enough to say !
Patient — under this terrible cloud of consciousness
and awful feeling of isolation which sprang up about

HAROLD.

101

him and entangled in a mesh his every step ! From
what motive did Herr Felix clog his very thought
and baffle all his attempts at self-enlightenment ?
Looking back over his life, he became firmly convinced
that Felix Schonberg had dogged and baffled him.
He had done it kindly, smilingly, politely — what of
that ? Could he not detect the veneer which made
the truth appear all the grosser and more disrepu-
table ? This action on Herr Felix's part was but the
saccharine coating of a bitter pill. This pill he now
choked in trying to swallow. Its bitterness sent a
spasm of revulsion throughout the frame of the un-
fortunate child of Chloe.

Harold continued to pace with restless footsteps the
piazza of the Hotel di Continenti.

He began to gaze more and more at the crowds
below, at the merry jostling and idle chatter of the
throng. No, not a single black face in all those passing
people. Black ! Black !

Who am 1 f What am 1 ? Whence do 1 come f
Granted he came of a goodly race, why — why had
everything which could shed any light on that race
been denied him ? Did Aladdin meditate on his
good fortune ? Did Abon Hassan, pale and sensi-
tive, sit wrapped in speculation when he woke up and
found himself Caliph of Bagdad ? Did Christopher
Sly grow melancholy because he was no longer a
tinker ?

What were such fables to Harold Bright ? He
wished to know the fatal truth as the moth thirsts
for the light. The brutal language of the American
seemed to make the whole world his insulters.

102

HAROLD.

Absorbed in this merciless train of thought, Harold
had failed to notice the small group which began gather-
ing on a distant end of the balcony. It comprised mostly
American ladies, as Harold could readily divine from
their dress and manner.

Vaguely fearing some other maddening scene, he
hastily repaired to his room. The one terrible neces-
sity which had been present in his mind for months
was confronting him at that moment. Herr Felix
must throw off his pompous manner, his affectation
of duty, and talk to him, man to man. From Felix
he must have the truth, even at the risk of disobeying
the unjust injunctions of the friend whom he had now
begun to hate — to regard as his worst enemy.

"Now — now I am calm," he soliloquized. "If
I am un sensitif I have been made so by his train-
ing, by his conduct toward me. Perhaps I might
have continued to live and enjoy myself, without a
care for the causes and conditions of my existence,
but it shall end — now ! now ! now ! If I am a
human hybrid, I swear to know it from his lips. If I
own a race or nation, to that race or nation I shall go !

" God in Heaven pity me ! If I am gifted with a soul
or am worthy of Thy handiwork, lend me aid. If I am
not of Thy making, if my blackness is a brand more
horrible than Cain's, I pray — I pray that Thou wilt take
my life and wilt crush me before I go mad among the
beasts ! But the tkuth ! I will have the truth /"

CHAPTER XV.

" Fie, treacherous hue ! that will betray with blushing
The close enacts and counsels of the heart !
Here's a lad framed of another leer."

— Titus Andronicus.

It was right here that the observer might locate the
fatal defect in the Experimentist's dogma. If re-
finement of intellect is not innate, brawn is. To
every infant born into the world a certain proportion
of vitality is allotted, and the standard may never be
raised. No organically puny child may be developed
by any physiological process into a candidate for the
prize-ring. One might as well say that the base-born
colt can ever be trained to compete with and vanquish
on the track the blooded race stallion. Brawn, in a
word, is an inherent quality.

Robust vitalities, then, require lusty contact with
the world. If the son of Chloe had been possessed of
some way of dissipating his nerve force, of bruising
his energies upon an occupation, he might still have
retained his lightness of temperament. On ne fait
rien, observes the philosopher, et on sefait movhide.

And one of the first things that occurs to the Ex-
perimentalist, as he now looks back over the field of
his exploit, is that of the various races of men, the
two most opposite to each other, Caucasian and
Ethiopian, appear to possess the least capacity for

104

HABOLD.

becoming morbid. If Harold, the Ethiop, had beea
born and bred among his fellows, even upon as high
an intellectual plane as he had been bred, he would
still have retained all that isolation of caste was now
taking away. For the smile of the black is as pro-
verbial as summer, and its fame extends over the uni-
verse. To show how far Harold had edged away
from the common impulses of his kind, two years had
elapsed in travel, and the slightest pretension to a smile
now gave the black youth pain.

If Herr Felix had not been so engrossed in his
observations and his books, he might at this juncture
have seen something to give him a twinge of re-
morse. But the fact of the matter was, Herr Felix
was engrossed in his books and observations, and,
indeed, had of late carried himself with rather a high
hand toward his charge. Ordinarily Harold would
have mildly resented this change of demeanor, even
in the face of the long and intimate relationship exist-
ing between the two. Herr Felix seemed a foster-
father more than anything else.

Harold just now had no spirit to utter a single word
of protest, but it nevertheless had seemed to him for
some months as if Herr Felix had a secret and terri-
ble rod in his keeping with which to smite him. He
fancied his grim tutor knew of truths, held in abey-
ance only because no opportune moment appeared in
which to cast them with damning might into his face.
Daily Harold had grown to fear Herr Felix.

But to-day all this was past.

To-day, in his room, locked and bolted from within,
he no longer felt the breath of fear. Harold mocked

HAROLD,

105

at hesitancy. With temples that throbbed pitilessly
he brooded over the everlasting secret of his birth
and origin, the wornout plaything and relaxation of
Inigo Bright. He went over all the old maddening
conjectures until he felt the process maddening.
Then Harold clapped on his hat and descended to
the street.

On the sidewalk Harold encountered his tutor.
Herr Felix was comfortably wrapped in an opera
cloak, chatting with a couple of acquaintances. Sev-
eral Frenchmen sat at tables sipping wine and listening
to the music discoursed by a band stationed in the
colonnade.

Herr Felix's tone was anything but respectful. It
was not even polite.

" So, so!" he cried, sharply; "I thought you
were upstairs and ill !"

" It was too close, and I decided to walk a little,"
replied Harold.

" But," pursued the tutor, in a peevish tone. " I
am going to the opera."

" Then I hope you will enjoy it, sir." Harold took
two paces forward.

" Harold, you must retire," called the tutor. u I
went out because you assured me you were ill and did
not intend leaving your room. How is this, sir ?"

There was something about Herr Schonberg to-
night that cut and angered the pupil. It may either
have been in his tone or in his manner, or both.

" Come upstairs,3' said Harold, suddenly, yet re-
spectfully. " Come upstairs, Herr Felix ; I shall want
you but a moment, perhaps."

106

HAROLD.

Herr Schonberg excused himself to his companions
with no very good grace, and followed his charge as
he ascended the hotel stairs. The two entered the
apartment — Harold's apartment at Is ice — which
neither were likely soon to forget.

"Well?" began the tutor.

Harold closed the door carefully, locked it from
within, and placed the key in his pocket. Felix
Schonberg sent one glance at Harold's eye and then
quailed like a hunter, powerless before his intended
prey.

" What — what does this mean ?" he gasped.

"Sit down," replied Harold, in a low, repressed
voice. "1 have much to say to you, sir — much to
ask you."

Then it was Herr Felix bounded to his feet as if
shot.

"'Ask me? Ask me? Explain your conduct at
once, Harold. Have I not always done my duty by
you ? Have I not always been kind and attentive
since you were a child ? Tou forget yourself. I
will trouble you to open that door — immediately."

The tutor was a well-built man. In his younger
days he had been a capital fencer, an expert boxer,
and a horseman of particular brilliancy, but he was no
match for Harold Bright if a blow was to be struck.
The threatening attitude of the tutor, his growing
excitement, and his pupil's stubbornness, all betokened
a collision of authority. Harold had promised Inigo
Bright to place himself entirely subordinate to his
tutor for three years. Herr Felix attempted to call
Harold to what he deemed a sense of duty.

HAROLD.

107

" Stop ! Not another word !" interrupted Harold.
" We cannot afford to lose time on petty recrimina-
tions. You must answer everything that I put to you.
at once. Do you hear me ?"

"If I decline ?"

" Then, by the living God above us, 1 will not be
responsible for what 1 do !"

The look, the gesture, the tones of Harold's voice
were dramatic to a degree. Felix Schonberg turned
a full shade paler.

" What do you wish to know ? I was not aware
that there was anything in my power to tell you that
would call for such violence as this."

" Pardon, Herr Schonberg," said Harold ; " 1 am
excited, and your manner did not seem wholly
friendly. Perhaps I did wrong in locking the door.
See, I will unlock it. I will deal openly with you,
but you must deal openly and fairly with me. First,
who am I ?"

Herr Felix became profoundly moved. He fal-
tered, rolled his eyes about the room, and clenched his
thighs with the palms of his hands.

" Tell me that which has been always concealed
from me. Were my parents black ? "

Herr Felix faced the alternative. He saw nothing
in the answer he might give which would offend his
patron. On the contrary, the question seemed foolish
and inane.

" Your father and mother were both as yourself.
I don't see what you are coming at. I was not aware
that you ever troubled yourself on this account.
There are many races on the globe — red, yellow, and

108

HAROLD,

brown as well, and I was not aware that any of them
ever sprang from white parentage."

Herr Felix's manner was now cold and taunting.
He was much more at ease.

k' Then, why," pursued Harold — " why have I
never been informed about the race from which 1
sprang ?"

" Informed — informed ?" repeated Herr Felix, va-
cantly. He was busy resolving a suitable reply.

" Do not mock me !" exclaimed Harold, with pas-
sion.

He then related to Herr Schonberg the story of
his encounter with the American.

" What do his words mean ? Why did he shrink
from me ? Why did she shrink from me ? My
God ! Why do you not speak ? Speak and tell me
why everybody is white and only I am black ? Where
are my people ? Why can I not go to them, mingle
with them, live with them ? Something tells me that
I am out of place. I yearn for the companionship
of blood. Where are my brothers and sisters ?"

Felix Schonberg retreated before the towering fig-
ure of Harold. The youth's appeal began fiercely, it
ended with a frightful wail.

" Where are my brothers and sisters ?"

Harold Bright seemed to plead before some stern,
relentless tribunal for the return of the slaughtered
dead. His hands moved convulsively and his whole
frame betrayed the utmost excitement. Felix Schon-
berg was loath to say anything which would add fuel
to his companion's passion.

" Speak ! Speak !" shrieked Harold.

HAROLD.

109

Felix found himself between two fires. While he
was meditating thus, Harold, now in the height of his
frenzy, struck him a slight blow. The tutor dared
not return it. With white face and trembling frame
he screamed loudly for help.

Harold ran from the room.

It seemed to him as if he had committed some
deadly crime. The slightness of the blow went un-
considered. Felix Schonberg had been his tutor and
companion from childhood, and the remorse he felt
for the action could be likened to nothing so much as
the remorse of a murderer who has smitten down a
fellow-being.

When, repentant, he returned to the room, Herr
Schonberg was gone. Where he had gone it was
beyond Harold's reason to even surmise. To suppose
for an instant, after what had passed between the two
men, that Felix had carried out his original intention
and gone to the opera seemed to him impossible.

As a matter of fact, Herr Felix had seen Harold on
the balcony, and properly guessing that he would be
seized with repentance for his action, had deemed it
best to remain away and leave the youth to himself
for the remainder of the night. Unfortunately Har-
old's experience of life had been too mild and peace-
ful for him not to put an exaggerated importance
upon the assault. His lively imagination, heated by }
the day's indignity, subjected him to such torment
that he made his mind up to return to England im-
mediately. He would face Inigo Bright's displeasure
rather than stay abroad another day.

Then came the thought of Mabel Yere, and with it

110

HAROLD.

a train of morbid recollections, morbid hopes, and
morbid fears. The influence of the American was
still upon him, and without knowing what he did,
Harold Bright decided that he would die before he
would go back to London and Inigo Bright.

After all, was life worth living since Felix had so
resolutely determined to tell him nothing concerning
his birth and country ? With all his youth and health
and vigor, such a thought made him revolt from it.
"Why not escape from it all and fly to America ?
Harold seized at the idea with flushed face and
throbbing temples. America ! America ! His race
lived there ! There were black men in America ! If
they were oppressed, he could succor them. Though
they were ground down, he could at least suffer among
his own.

Long before midnight the bird had flown. His
plans were hasty, crude, and incomplete. His object
was simply flight. All he knew was that he had
enough money to pay his passage to America, and
further than that he knew and cared nothing. The
ticket agent at the Nice railway station was consider-
ably startled at the sight of a well-dressed negro carry-
ing a Gladstone bag, who inquired when the train for
the north would arrive in pure English, and who
bought a ticket for Havre. By consulting time tables
and a copy of Galignani, Harold found that he could
arrive in Havre four hours before a steamer would sail
for New York.

CHAPTER XVI.

" A toiling city thick with crowds
Then to his vision rose."

— Melbourne.

It was a dull, cold morning.

A haze of autumn sleet was slanting on the great
pier. Gangs of laborers ran about with ropes and
planks. Officers were shouting, luggage was being
tossed about, customs men were swearing, and two
or three blue-coated guardians of the peace were hold-
ing in check a mob composed of the friends and rela-
tives of the steamer's passengers. For their part, in-
cessant handkerchief-shaking, eye-wiping, and brow-
mopping. It was plain that everybody was literally
on the tiptoe of expectation. A knot of handsomely
attired women seemed to be dying of anxiety lest some
husband, brother, friend, or lover should fail to recog-
nize them among the throng. A group of actors
elbowed their way to be the first to shake hands with
a famous brother comedian who had won laurels
abroad. Six tired-looking newspaper reporters stood
inside the hallowed ground.

At this interesting juncture some one shouts :

" Heave her off, there !"

This is closely followed by a

" Haul her up, there !"

Whereupon the gang-planks are thrown open, and

112

HAROLD.

over these tiny bridges the tide of humanity, pent up
for a whole week and a half, swarms upon the pier.
Faces are recognized, and if they are not handker-
chiefs are waved with increasing vigor and despera-
tion. This politician and that savant are recognized.
The reporters rush eagerly forward to their prey.

By and by all are out. The bowels of the great
ship are emptied of human freight. They certainly
must be emptied.

But, no ! Down the slender tendon which binds
the huge marine monster to its native soil ad-
vances a well-knit, self-possessed figure. His face
is black, but he does not seem an ordinary negro.
Self-possessed, his every motion betrays complete
mastery and determined resolve. He is dressed
plainly, yet perfectly. In his right hand he bears a
heavy Gladstone as if it were a toy.

The painfully acute representatives of a great and
searching press start forward with all the enthusiasm
of their craft.

The illustrious pugilistic light-weight champion of
Tuppenny Corners is neglected.

Harold Bright does not try to restrain a smile — the
first he has known for weeks. Not altogether a stranger
to this experience, he has determined to say nothing.
The inquisitiveness of the scribes redoubles each mo-
ment, but Harold only smiles.

The Isew York newspapers consequently announce
the following morning that a distinguished Haytian —
Liberian — Abyssinian diplomat — scholar — traveller
has landed on American shores.

CHAPTER XVII.

•* Great is the justice of the "white man —
Greater is the power of a lie."

— E. Kipling.

Armed with such slight information as he had ac-
quired from the stranger at the dock in Havre, Harold
engaged a vehicle and drove directly to the Manhattan
Hotel. The time in the vehicle he employed in gazing
out of the windows at the buildings and the crowds.
Hurried along in this lively manner, his spirits, not
unnaturally, rose at the prospect of being loosed from
the thraldom of thought. For the first time in many
months he experienced a pleasant and real buoyancy.
He felt that, given the opportunity, he could set
hands and brain to work in his new sphere with a
will. Thoroughly confident of himself in this way,
he reached the hotel and alighted from the cab.
When he paid the driver, the action recalled him at
once and with something of a shock to the paltry
state of his finances. Just at present, however, there
was little time for pondering. As he entered the
hotel, with its long corridor filled with loungers and
lighted with gas jets even in the daytime, an Irish
porter immediately laid hold of his valise, without
even the preliminary of setting eyes upon its owner.
Harold walked briskly up to the clerk's desk without
attracting very much attention and demanded a room.

114

HAKOLD.

" I shall want to occupy it at once, if you please,"
he added, in a decided sort of way.

The clerk stared as if he had not heard aright or
could scarcely credit his senses. Harold cast one
glance upon him. He felt his heart sink. It re-
minded him so much of the glance of General Louis
Legarde.

a How's that?" asked the clerk, laying down his
pen and then taking it up again.
Harold repeated his request.

At this interesting juncture a slim, reddish-haired
young man, wearing eye-glasses, leaned over the
counter and whispered something in the clerk's ear.
The clerk laid down his pen again and stared. Hav-
ing done this for the space of a full half minute,
he retreated some distance behind the glass door
of a compartment labelled " Manager's Office,*'
from whence shortly issued a stout, portly gentle-
man, who attended to Harold's case in very short
order.

66 I'm extremely sorry — extremely sorry, indeed,"
he explained, suavely, <; but the house is full. Yes ;
you see, the house is full. Of coarse," he added,
" there ara three or four rooms, but they are reserved
for old patrons, whom we are expecting every mo-
ment."

"Whereupon the manager smiled, nodded, rubbed
his hands, and retreated. Two or three guests smiled,
nodded, and winked at his retreating figure. Appar-
ently they enjoyed this colloquy immensely. Har-
old's chagrin left him courage but wherewith to ask :

" Can you, then, direct me to a hotel ?"

HAKOLD.

115

The clerk hesitated. Then a happy thought struck
him.

u Try a few doors further up," he said.

4£ %

It was a bitter experience.

Five hotels in quick succession Harold entered and
retreated from with no better success. Once or twice
he got ugly looks that were yet less insulting than the
lies — lies accompanied by satirical blandness and a
smile. He saw other strangers enter and register on
the hotel's book in an offhand way, and knew that
the functionaries spoke no truth to him. But what
could he do ?

A stranger in a great city must first have food and
lodging ; it is his first step toward gaining a foothold.
Harold was black, and was denied that. What would
the sensible man and present reader do under such
circumstances ? People eyed him askance on the
street, and not a few stared at him with a broad grin
traced upon their faces.

Harold had left his satchel at the hotel he had first en-
tered. In retracing his steps over the crowded, muddy
thoroughfare, he came across a little park. In it were a
series of wooden benches, and upon one of these the
son of Chloe seated himself and sunk his head heavily
upon his upraised palms. The terrible despair of
that moment was relieved by nothing in past — or
future. All his remembered joys had sickened and
died on his hands, and his cup of bitterness was full.
Not a single ray of hope illumined the gloom of that
awful moment !

But in the midst of a mute appeal to Providence

116

HAROLD.

for succor, he chanced to raise his eyes, and lo ! the
figure of a stalwart negro as black as himself appeared
through the trees lining the path. He was rapidly
approaching, and had a good-sized paper parcel tucked
under each arm. Harold's first impulse was to dart
forward, explain the situation, and beg for the man's
assistance. Surely one of his own color would not*
refuse him. 2STor was he mistaken. But his nervous
haste and extreme excitability of countenance nearly
sent the other negro into convulsions. He dropped
one of his packages, and appeared strongly in favor of
taking to his heels.

" Yo3 mos3 scared me to death, " he explained,
i; comin at me like that ! Ef yo'll come with me,
Mister L'Heureux '11 be right pleased to see yon.'3

Harold cheerfully accepted his offer, and together
they crossed the park.

:% I s'pose yo' won't mind waitin' after I shows yo'
the place, will yo' V' observed the negro, whose
name was Cassias White ; " believe Mister L'Heu-
renx ain't liable to come home befo' five, and it ain't
only three now."

Harold started and took out his watch, which his
companion eyed admiringly.

" Good God ! I can't believe it ! I must have
been sitting in that park for hours !''

Such moments of despair rarely come but once in a
human lifetime. It is a stupor that overwhelms time
itself as it overwhelmed Harold, so that the hours fled
by unheeded. Even now, in the company of Cassius,
he merely remembered boarding a yellow-painted
caravan, of answering some questions which his com-

HAROLD.

117

panion quite respectfully put to him ; he remembered
alighting before a rather cheerful house of red brick ;
he remembered being greeted by a dark-skinned
woman, of being very sleepy, and of being shown to
a room by a man whose hand he clasped.

CHAPTER XVIII.

" 'The curse has come upon me,' cried the Lady of Shalott."

This L'Heureux turned out to be a slender, well-
proportioned man of thirty, whose clear, saddle-
colored skin was not his least attraction. He had a
countenance which was prepossessing, earnest, and
sincere, and his bearing closely resembled that of a
gentleman.

L'Heureux took Bright's arm cordially the next
morning and led him in to breakfast, without making
any very personal inquiries concerning his guest's
presence in the family. For his part, during the
progress of the meal, Harold learned that his host
was an editor and a philanthropist. When the repast
was concluded (and Harold ate bat little), L'Heureux
led the way to the office of the newspaper published
in the interests of his race, of which he was proprietor.

6 ' It is so much better to walk on a cold morning
like this," he observed, briskly, as they passed well
into Broadway. " I find it invariably puts me into a
better frame of mind. I can also write a great deal
better."

Harold felt his spirits returning with the walk.

" Tour buildings are very fine," he remarked, ad-
miringly, of the great iron and marble fagades which
line the greatest thoroughfare in the world. The two

HAROLD.

119

cnatted in commonplace fashion until City Hall Square
was reached, and L'Heureux led his companion
across.

Harold felt again a sensation of pleasure stealing
over him for the second time since his landing. The
duties and accountabilities of life had never seemed
so real as when now he gazed upon the hurry and
scurry and bustle ot mankind, and felt that he, too,
might in this new world add his own zephyr to the
whirlwind of occupation and progress. Wending
their way through crowded Nassau Street, the editor
of the Freeman suddenly wheeled down a side thor-
oughfare and brought up before a low brick building
covered with white paint, one of the few remaining
sometime aristocratic mansions of a departed century.
L'Heureux looked Harold in the face and smiled.
" There we are," he said ; " this is my fortress. Not
very pretentious, but still, if you take it all round, a
genuine marvel."

So saying, he again took his companion's arm and
mounted two pairs of dark, dingy stairs. When near
the top a door with a glazed glass window was hastily
thrown open, and a black youth called out :

" Good-morning, Mr. L'Heureux. We are in a
hole again. Neither of the compositors has put in
an appearance !"

" Yery well, Norman. Let me introduce my assist-
ant— Norman Fletcher, Mr. Bright."

The young men shook hands warmly. Fletcher
was many shades of complexion lighter than Harold
and at least two years younger.

" Now what is this?" resumed L'Heureux, when

120

HAROLD,

all three had taKen chairs. " No printers again ? It
was that turkey raffle, Norman, depend upon it."

L'Heureux turned to Bright and explained how his
assistants, who were usually employed in type-setting
for the paper, were addicted to periodical absences
for two days at a stretch. u This is one of the
greatest annoyances I meet with," he said, with no
trace of annoyance, however, either in face or man-
ner. " No printers, no paper. That is the alterna-
tive in the greatest newspaper office in the world.
But we, being the smallest, perhaps, are not bound by
any such rules. We are often obliged to be both
printers and editors. Come, Norman, how many
columns do we lack ?' '

" Seven, and we go to press to-morrow."

" Have we the leaders up ?"

" Yes, sir — that is, 1 think so. Here are a number
of clippings to be set."

L'Heureux ran his eye over the proofs.

" Let me see, ' The Blair Bill,' ' Southern Senators
and Northern Sentiment,' 6 Mr. Douglass's Error,'
' An Appeal to the Bayonet ' — why, that is only four.
We must have six at least."

" There is the Mahone incident."

" No ; 1 have promised not to allude to that further.
What else ?"

Norman picked over a pile of exchanges.

" Mr. Marsh dropped in this morning to explain
about the colored organization in the Ninth Ward.
He says the Freeman ought to make a retraction."

" Marsh is an idiot, a 6 no-account.' Such colored
organizations as his are bound to retard progress in-

HAROLD.

121

stead of promoting it. Every nigger with a little
schooling got late in. life wants to get up clubs and
societies. If Marsh thinks I am wrong, let him prove
it. I won't retract a word."

L'Heureux had by this time doffed his coat and
rolled up his sleeves preparatory to work. During
the above outburst he seemed to get a little warmed
up, and for the moment forgot Bright's presence.

fcC I can't help getting angered at these local politi-
cians," he said. " You will learn about them to your
sorrow, Mr. Bright. They spoil all our better plans.
They organize when organization will only injure us.
Negro politics have no place in the North, except to
excite unjust prejudice."

To Harold this talk seemed like so much jargon ;
he was engaged in minutely observing the walls and
furnishings of the place. The office consisted of two
low-studded rooms adjoining each other, one of these
being used as the composing and press room. An
old-fashioned roller printing-press stood in one corner.
The other apartment, the one in which he sat, was
rather cosey- looking, plenty of heat being diffused
throughout from a stove placed in nearly the centre.

A small but generously filled bookcase was fastened
to the wall beside the editorial desk. Another and
smaller desk stood in another corner near the window,
of which latter conveniences there were two in either
apartment. The walls were liberally covered with
frames. Many contained portraits of illustrious men
connected with the abolition of slavery — those, for in-
stance, of Lincoln and Sumner and Phillips ; but
the most striking objects were printed placards in

122

HAROLD.

large display type, which could be read at the utmost
distance to which an occupant of the chamber could
recede. L'Heureux explained :

" That, I should tell you, is an extract from Mrs.
Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Those are the closing
words of President Lincoln's Gettysburg speech. Oh,
you have heard that ! Here is the Fifteenth Amend-
ment entire. Over there I hang up what I call my
inspirations. They, too, are mottoes. Can you read
them?"

Harold Bright read them. Then he turned and
looked L'Heureux straight in the eye for a full min-
ute. So intense was the glare, that it seemed as if he
were about to spring and pin him down to the floor.
L'Heureux returned his gaze, silent, but inwardly
marvelling. The visitor first spoke, saying with en-
forced calmness :

" 1 told you but little last night, L'Heureux ; per-
haps what I have yet to tell may astonish you beyond
your — yes, even my own belief. But tell me — I am
ignorant as a child — do you hold such doctrines as that
true ?"

Intelligence instantly spread itself over the features
of L'Heureux. The other was pointing wildly to a
great placard on the wall.

"The great truth," it ran, "that the negro is not equal to

THE WHITE MAN ; THAT SLAVERY, SUBORDINATION TO THE SUPERIOR
RACE, IS HIS NATURAL AND NORMAL CONDITION. THE NEGRO BY NATURE
OR BY THE CURSE OF CANAAN IS FITTED FOR THAT POSITION WHICH HE
OCCUPIES IN OUR SYSTEM, AND BY EXPERIENCE WE ENOW THAT IT IS
BEST NOT ONLY FOR THE SUPERIOR, BUT FOR THE INFERIOR RACE THAT
IT SHOULD BE SO. It IS, INDEED, IN CONFORMITY WITH THE ORDINANCE

of the Creator. Alexander H. Stephens."

HAROLD.

123

" Do yon mean to tell me those sentiments are new
to you !" exclaimed the editor of the Freeman. He
was silent for a moment. "It is not strange," he
added. " You are a European. But, tell me, have
you read nothing of our race wars, our race discus-
sions, our race polemics ?"

" So little, that I traversed the wide Atlantic to
learn. All my knowledge of my caste is instinct.
I have been born and bred in a dense mist. Every
road has been opened to me but that leading to my
origin and my — color."

L'Heureux was so amazed that he forgot to reply.
Harold's eyes suddenly filled with tears.

" It seems strange, does it not ? That is because
I am educated and drilled in the ways of the polite
world. I fear I know but little of the real world.
But," he said, with an effort, "you have not an-
swered me."

" I'm afraid 1 can't now. You would not under-
stand. The sentiment you see on that wall inspires
me, because it tells me what my race and yours has
yet to perform before it can brand its distinguished
author an ineffable liar."

It was L'Heureux's turn to be moved. He set his
teeth closely together for a moment. Quickly collect-
ing himself, however, he begged his companion to
divert himself while he busied himself at the printer's
case.

Norman Fletcher, who had gone out during
colloquy, returned now with an armful of letters and
newspapers, which he disposed in order on the desk,
and forthwith withdrew, also to the adjoining room.

124

HAROLD.

Harold, thus left to his own devices, took down a
number of volumes from the book-shelf at his elbow
and skimmed them over with nervous curiosity. Sev-
eral hours passed while he was thus engaged be-
fore L'Heureux professed himself at leisure. This
he did as the mighty bell in the adjacent tower of
Trinity Church struck one, upon which both men
descended for lunch. The editor of the Freeman in-
formed Harold that he usually lunched at a little Ger-
man restaurant around the corner, where they could
sit and chat unobserved. Bright found it a rather
pleasant, snug place, situate in a cellar, above which
rose a massy pile of buildings. The restaurant was
resorted to by clerks and the needier class of profes-
sional men. Here, after they had been comfortably
seated and partaken of a light luncheon, both being
too much occupied to have an appetite, the son
of Chloe told his curious history. Throughout the
narration he maintained a quiet dignity and refine-
ment of manner that astonished L'Heureux, even
after he had become undoubted master of the causes
which produced it. When it was all through there
was silence between them for several minutes.

" What did you write your benefactor?" asked
L'Heureux.

" This," and Harold repeated almost word for
word that which he had posted in the heat of his
emotion at Havre. "I know lean trust you," he
said to L'Heureux.

" You can, you can," reiterated the other, grasping
Bright's hand and holding it with an almost fatherly
affection. " Perhaps it is better not to seek to un-

HAROLD.

125

ravel the mystery of the man who has made you just
what you are ; but I fancy it is plain even now to
both of us. Under the mask of some mortal caprice,
God Almighty has snatched one from the ranks of
our kind to mix, mingle, and enjoy with the master
race. You are surely destined to some great good to
our race. Unwittingly you have imbibed every feel-
ing, every sensation, every noblest sentiment which
seventeen centuries of domination have bequeathed to
the white man ; consequently you are the equal of
any Caucasian that breathes."

u But is that — is that remarkable °"

L'Heureux paused a moment.

" Yes ; you are the first negro in all the billions
of souls included in the whole of modern civilization
to enjoy the atmosphere and the privileges of the
white man !"

It would be difficult to convey the force and earnest-
ness with which the speaker uttered these words.

" As for me," he said, u I can tell my story in a
few words. My grandfather was a French slave trans-
ported to the French colonial possessions. He was
killed early in the insurrection of 1812, when my
father was a child in arms. When he grew older he
shipped as a marine on board a man-of-war, and was
captured by the English and sold to a broker in cotton
down in Charleston. The broker made him his body
servant and treated him kindly for twenty years. Dur-
ing this time he married and 1 was born. Then the
master died. My father was seized by a planter for
a pretended debt, and was made to work as a common
laborer in the rice fields. Although my mother was

126

HAROLD.

a free woman, she was not permitted even to see him.
One day he wrote my mother a letter to leave at once
for the North, as he intended to escape. But he was
caught out at sea in an open boat and shot dead
while swimming a way from his pursuers."

" And all this impossible?" gasped Harold. He
had been drinking in every syllable of UHeureux's
narrative.

The latter smiled bitterly. " I forgot. You are
positively ignorant of the beauties of race slavery. But
this is a merciful instance. Taken all in all, the lives
of both my progenitors were far above the ordinary
standard of negro happiness."

During the next few days Harold Bright lived in a
vague, unreal world. He appeared scarcely to think.
He dared not trust himself even in thought. He could
only deem it, in a vague sort of way, some horrible
dream from which he would soon awaken. He went
through the introduction to others of his own race
half -unconscious of what he said or did. L'Heureux
was only too happy to befriend him. He used to
argue that a generous Providence had put it in his
power to do so. He thought he knew and appreci-
ated the full extent of Harold's sufferings. He felt,
too, that it would be but temporary, and when he re-
covered his wonted vigor of mind Gorman Fletcher
would have returned to college, and the cause of the
black man would find a unique and fitting champion in
Harold through the columns of the paper. Colored
men read and reasoned more now. The colored vote
was gaining in independence with every year. The

HAROLD.

127

black man's wrongs were to be righted ; new and more
glaring injustices appeared. The process of self -edu-
cation was bringing its results. Everything pointed
to a future potency for the Freeman of which, in his
most sanguine moments, when he began it, L'Heureux
had scarcely dreamed.

And so the son of black Chloe lived and moved and
had his being for weeks in a sort of trance. His
chamber overlooked the street, and at its window he
sat and mused many a night when L'Heureux be-
lieved him asleep. He could no more have closed his
eyes than he could have altered the color of his skin.

Christmas time came — those days in which he was
wont to make merry in the old manor at Dubersly — -
to find L'Heureux and his wife talking him with
might and main into a more cheerful and rational
frame of mind.

Sarah L'Heureux wTas an intelligent negress, some
years younger than her husband. She was ambitious,
attractive in her manner, and at times even of a satirical
wit. Her figure was good and her face was certainly not
un pleasing. This woman's father was a New Orleans
Creole, who had married a full-blooded Ethiopian girl,
paying for her ransom along with the wedding fee.
Mrs. L'Heureux was looked up to, therefore, as a
social leader among the better classes of the blacks of
New York. She had a small fortune of thirty or
forty thousand dollars in her own right, and her hus-
band's property was not inconsiderable. During the
winter season a great many worthy and even distin-
guished men and women of their own race graced the
L'Heureux abode. Sarah L'Heureux gave balls and

128

HAROLD.

parties, at which black members of Congress had been
known to figure. And this was not all. The visitors
to the house in Tyler Street were not all branded with
the curse of Canaan. Their faces were not all of a
Cimmerian hue. Some of them were politicians and
stood high in public esteem. They did not deem it
any infringement of those iron-clad rules of caste, •
which had been drawn up from time immemorial, to
cater to the thousands of suffrages, which these, their
inferiors, represented. L'Heureux was a powerful
factor, they knew, and L'Heureux found it agreeable
not to receive their advances with disdain.

"It is true," said he, on one occasion, u we wear
our blackness on our faces, but it is a better way than
theirs, who wear it in their hearts."

The social principle recognized by the L'Heureux
was simple. They and their friends were fain to let
the two races go their respective ways. There was to
be no truckling on the one hand, no patronage on the
other. The shade of caste color nearest perfection
was the somberest. Miss Troup, who was an octoroon,
did not take precedence over Miss Burton, whose com-
plexion was a jet and glossy ebony. As few standards
of taste as possible obtained from the whites were
tolerated.

But it must not be supposed from this that there
were no degrees of castes within a caste. The inhabi-
tants of Ludlow Street were as much elevated above
the heads of the denizens of Thompson Street as the s
citizen of Walker Alley and the Chelsea Flats was
below the resident of Anne Terrace or the purlieus of
Oxley Square. As for the L'Heureux mansion, it

HAROLD.

129

was besought by the whole negro social organiza-
tion.

L'Heureux and his wife had dipped pretty deep
into the lore of their recent masters, but not enough
to make them affect a scorn of religion. Both were
highly devout, and members of a flourishing African
Episcopal congregation. On this particular Christmas
Eve they had made great preparations for observing
the day with gladness and propriety.

Harold watched these preparations with a strange
and wistful sadness in his heart. The bits of ever-
green fastened about the walls recalled to him the
days when he had the ignorant and presumptuous folly
to believe himself the equal of Arthur Danthorne and
Robert Langley and other of his youthful playmates.
But those days were gone. It behooved him now to
cast the dead and dried leaves of the past to the four
winds and seek for fresh, new blossoms in a future
career. He had gathered the old posies with pride in
his heart. He had been led to believe they would
last forever. The man who had willed all this igno-
rance for him was a great and dear friend, whom he
now had thrown off and alienated. The shock of
knowledge, of course, was great. It is no wonder he
suffered from it. It is not hard to fancy a man
waking up after a night of pleasant dreams to find
both legs severed from his body. Or for the ruler of a
kingdom suddenly to make the discovery that he was
nothing, after all, but a hod-carrier. But the cripple
must soon become accustomed to his maimed state.
The hod-carrier must get to his work early in the day,
just like the other hod- carriers. And he might yet

130

HAROLD.

be a great, distinctive carrier of hods. A kingly hod-
carrier is yet a distinction worth living for. How
much better than one of a dozen hod- carrier kings, who
manage to pitiably disfigure the pages of history !

66 We have invited a great many people to-morrow,
and you really should be in good spirits and help us
entertain them.5'

Harold thought this a small favor in return for all
those he had received. He replied to his hostess as
gallantly as if she had been Mme. Salecy herself and
he in her spacious salon.

CHAPTER XIX.

n No face is fair that is not full so black."

— Shakespeabe.

By nine o'clock the next evening the house was full
of the best people. We live in a relative world : to
themselves the blacks of New York were the acme of
wit and exclusiveness. The interior of the front
parlor was adorned with holly and evergreens. Sev-
eral branches of mistletoe peeped from underneath the
blazing chandelier. Out of the thirty guests of the
L'Heureux, twelve were full-blooded negroes. Some
hailed from the city of Brooklyn and adjoining towns,
where they had built themselves up a certain regard
as persons of responsibility. Among these was a war
fugitive from Georgia, who had apprenticed himself
to a druggist to slave in the laboratory. He had
eventually mastered the business and set up an estab-
lishment for himself. Another was a real estate agent,
who, from being patronized solely on account of his
skin, had invited patronage because of his business
abilities and his probity. He was said to be as shrewd
as a Jew. Both of these men had married of their
own race, if not of their own hue, and had given birth
-to children of both sexes.

After the ceremony of introduction was over Har-
old found himself in a little coterie composed of his
hostess, one Peter Johnson, his wife, and Angela

132

HAROLD.

Hyde, the daughter of a Harlem house builder and
contractor. Miss Hyde was the only black young
woman in the assemblage. The difference between
her and the mulattoes and quadroons was strongly
marked. She laid no pretence to conversational
ability, but managed to play several airs on the
piano acceptably. Strange as it may seem, she
courted Harold's attention very assiduously, yet Har-
old felt no emotion but that of repugnance toward
these advances. In person, Miss Hyde was of the
full-lipped, flat-nosed, frowzy-haired type, and was
really considered by those who looked from an
Ethiop's coign of vantage the belle of the evening.

Peter Johnson, on the other hand, was a mulatto,
and his wife a remarkably handsome quadroon. Mr.
Johnson was a lawyer and a remarkably well-educated
man, " as sharp as a knife, sah !" as one of the com-
pany remarked confidentially to Harold. The re-
mainder of the ensemble was more or less demonstra-
tive and in general keeping with the type of Ameri-
can men and women of color who have mixed much
with the white man.

The conversation first ran on the individual healths
of the party. Some averred they were feeling but
" poorly," and there seemed to be no intervening or
qualifying condition. The remainder were feeling
" first-rate." Then talk on the weather and church
matters was in order, and by degrees dress and edibles
were appropriately discussed. Then some one gave
the signal for dancing to begin, and every eye ap-
peared to glisten as if by magic. The negro of every
caste dearly loves dancing. Harold discovered that

HAROLD.

133

the circle in which L'Heureux and his wife moved
was not a theatre-going class ; that the higher temples
of the drama were practically closed to them. The-
atre parties were an impossibility.

"1 only go to the theatre rarely," observed Mr.
Johnson. " In fact, I don't care much for it. You
can't tell whether the man who sits next to you isn't
going to kick up a row or your wife get insulted. It
spoils all the enjoyment you get out of it. As soon
as we colored people have a theatre of our own I'll go
oftener, perhaps."

Ordinarily the blacks were very fond of the drama.

Harold refrained from dancing, but sat chatting
with the negro druggist and L'Heureux. He learned
that Johnson was an accomplished story-teller and
full of reminiscent anecdotes of his personal history
and travels. For Johnson was born in Alabama, and
had been carried North when a mere child as the
private page of a Congressman, who had educated him
and afterward had taken him abroad, after receiving
an appointment as Spanish consulate.

Thus Johnson had had more than natural advan-
tages, and was consequently enabled to even separate
himself at times from his race, and even to look at
society and politics from the broader plane of the
white man.

This was the field in which Harold Bright now re-
solved to cast all his energies and talents.

CHAPTER XX.

" Did not thy hue betray whose brat thou art,
Had nature ]ent thee but thy mother's look,
Thou might'st have been an emperor

— Titus Andronicus.

Months, even years, sped on with Harold.

It lias now grown to be the middle of summer.
The plants and flowers growing by the wayside exude
their accustomed fragrance. The fragrance mingles
with the sunlight. Above, the white clouds soar and
seem cool. Hundreds of feet below the Hudson
glides pompously toward the sea.

The boughs of the trees which overhang a path
leading to the summit of the Palisades are of a sud-
den brushed aside to permit a dismounted horseman
to lead his animal on to a given point. The animal is
secured by its bridle to the trunk of a stout maple.

The figure is Harold Bright's, clean shaven, a little
older, and with strange, grayish fibres in his jet hair.
Still, only a very few years have elapsed. The animal
Harold has just secured is a livery hack he has ridden
up from Hoboken. He has a mare of his own, but
Bess, as he calls her, is a trifle lame from a fall,
and the difficulty of ferry-boat conveyance back and
forth across the river usually spoils the day's enjoy-
ment of the outing tourist. Horse and man are at
present upon a little open, right on the brink of the

HAROLD.

135

cliff — a smooth, grassy spot, with a huge rocky ledge
projecting above the surface, and cut by nature's hand
into a model seat from which to view with comfort
and serenity the scene spread out below. It is not
grand, it is not majestic, this view of the Hudson
from the Palisades, but it is supremely beautiful,
witching, fascinating, and exquisite, an euphemist
would say. The vernal woodland on the eastern
shore, dotted with towns and dwellings, seems too
miniature to be real. It is like a scene from toy-ville
and tinsel-land: the trees are of fragile tissue, and
the houses are the pudgy, German painted blocks
familiar to childhood ; the clouds which overhang them
are puffs of pipe-smoke — nothing by any possibility
can be real. It only needs the grave-faced urchin to
come stalking in with his mouth full of raspberry
tart, to knock the whole community over, and pack it
up in his Noah's ark.

Harold, having tied his horse, pushed the ivy aside
and seated himself on the rock. Twenty feet away,
to his right, a chasm had been formed lengthwise, and
the front of the cliff became a sort of outer wall
wooded with firs. Across this crevice a slender bridge
had been thrown by the owner of the estate, who had
built himself a mansion for his summer enjoyment
further back among the trees. On the summit of
this natural wall was a tiny observatory and a bed of
bright flowers. It was the sole touch of color in the
foreground of the picture Harold thus revelled in.
The day was uncomfortably warm to the world below,
but here a cooling breeze was blowing, and sitting in
the shade of the flourishing maple which reared its

136

HAROLD.

trunk just beside his stamping ground, Harold drew out
his pipe, filled it with tobacco, and stretching his feet
until they rested on an ivy hammock, at the base of
the rock, luxuriously drank in the scene through the
curling cloudlets of Cavendish. What a pity the
mind could not always separate itself thus at will from
the clodden smallness of life ! he thought. Why can
we not mount above the pettiness of the world without
such purely physical accessories as a pair of legs and
the capacity for climbing up a few paltry feet of in-
clined ground ? — which, by the way, the geographers
tell us, is merely a grain of sand on the earth's surface.

" Ah ! yes ; this is the life I ought to lead,'' Harold
said to himself — " a quietly contemplative existence.
Leave all the humdrum of a world in which such as
I have no place and live like this always. I could
easily do it in a few years. I could write my way to
success, if all publishers were in duty bound to ac-
cept."

Harold thought with a glow of satisfaction of his
literary success, of the marked cordiality with which
his lucubrations had been received by newspaper and
magazine editors in the metropolis. They thought
him a novelty — a monstrosity in letters, perhaps, but
what did he care for that ? They had done so well by
him that he took no salary from L'Heureux, but had
allowed it to accumulate as stock in the Freeman,
which more than prospered in these days of problem-
atical agitation.

It was while ruminating this way that Harold heard
voices, seemingly close at hand. The voices he soon
found proceeded from a group of children, laughing

HAROLD.

137

forerunners of a picnic party. It was just the day
for a picnic and this was just the spot. Shielded as
he was by rock and tree, Harold remained unobserved
as the party, which apparently consisted of three or
four ladies and a dozen or more children, proceeded
to emplace its hampers, parasols, and various other
belongings in picturesque confusion upon the summit.
Forty feet from the ledge the children prattled and
played games, in which latter diversions the women
joined by turns. The sound of the voices could
readily be distinguished, and at times, as they sat
knitting and crocheting apart, whole sentences of
their conversation drifted over to Harold.

Two hours passed by, and the black had fallen into
an ecstatic doze, when a slight noise caused him to
reopen his eyes lazily. Before him, a few feet dis-
tant, was a child of about five — a boy — with crisp
golden curls, that reflected the sunlight and made a
yellow fringe about his dark-hued Tarn o' Shanter.
He was busy plucking the daisies from their stalks,
and occasionally a fluffy, superannuated dandelion,
which he paused long enough to blow into a million
feathery atoms. Harold contemplated the child with
varied emotions. He was no longer drowsy. His
fanciful mood this sunny afternoon led him to sur-
round the youngster with a tinge of romantic interest.
As he watched the tin)7, bending figure and listened
to the winning prattle, he wondered why he could not
have remained such a one in the old, old days at
Capenhurst. He wondered if this child ever thought
of the inestimable blessing God had bestowed upon
him in making his skin white, and what there could

138

HAROLD,

be in the future to set itself as a barrier across that
young life. He tried to weave a future for him as
he lay there propped up against the rock, shielded
from the sun's rays. His life would doubtless be one
of content. Passing over his school -days, at twenty
he would naturally fall in love, and being well-to-do
and handsome, that love wrould probably be returned
with interest. This subject of love naturally led
Harold's vagaries back over the path of his own ex-
perience and to thoughts of Mabel Vere. As he did so
he clasped his hands together suddenly and bitterly.
The boy, who had been straying dangerously near the
edge of the precipice, was immediately attracted by
the noise. He turned his chubby face, expecting to
greet an anxious sister or a laughing playmate who
had come back to restore him to the group. There
was a pretty smile on his lips, and his big blue eyes
stared roguishly from under his cap. At that instant
he caught sight of the black, who, alarmed for the
child's safety, had started up and turned, also smiling,
upon him. The sight was too much for the little
fellow. No smile of Harold's could relieve that ogre-
like blackness. With a shrill scream he turned, made
scarce a single step forward, and was dashed helplessly
over the edge of the precipice.

Harold Bright felt a spasm of horror run through
his frame, but he did not lose his presence of mind.

Without waiting to peer over the brink, he raised his
voice and shouted to the child's companions. Then
with a bound he threwr his body along the ground and
leaned over, fully expecting to behold, away down
among the trees and boulders, hundreds of feet, a tiny

HAROLD.

139

mangled heap of flesh. Judge of his surprise and
relief on realizing that the child's fall had been broken
by the limbs of a sapling, which, along with many
others, grew along the sides of the Palisades. In all
probability, he explained to the breathless women
who came running to meet him, their charge was
practically unhurt. The sapling was only some fifteen
feet from the top of. the cliff, and would not be a
difficult matter to reach. The child had evidently
been stunned by the fall, as he lay perfectly still. The
only trouble to be feared was that he might become
excited and move before he could be rescued. In a
few simple words Harold explained how the accident
occurred and of his presence there. He begged that
three or four of the older children be sent for help
and ropes, and then without more ado threw off his
coat and began to examine the face of the cliff.

As the seconds flew by, the danger that the child
might return to consciousness and move returned to
him with such force that he determined to attempt the
wrork of rescue alone. The nearest house was half a
mile distant ; it might be fifteen minutes before help
arrived. A closer examination of the bough showed
more plainly than ever the extreme precariousness of
the child's lodgment. A sudden gust of wind might
render the fall fatal and rescue absolutely hopeless.
There was but one really wise, though daring thing to
do. It was quite possible to descend the cliff by the
aid of stones and shrubbery, and, having approached
the sapling, either to trust to its strength in bearing
two or to hold the child in a secure position until
help arrived. All of this Harold accomplished almost

140

HAROLD.

as soon as lie had declared liis intentions. The
women, all of whom were young, appeared to be
quite as cool and self-possessed as it was possible to be
under the circumstances. One of them even found
time, while Harold's difficult and perilous descent was
being made, to make an observation on his appear-
ance.

" Girls, I never saw a negro like that before," she
said. u I cannot believe that he is a negro."

Shortly after Harold reached the sapling the child
returned to consciousness, and immediately made an
involuntary movement, which would have sufficed to
dislodge him from its branches. It was only then
that the wisdom of Harold's venture was thoroughly
apprehended by the anxious watchers above.

" God bless you !" one of them ejaculated, and the
rest looked into each other's eyes. The coolest of
the party was a brunette of about twenty-five, who
scarcely removed her eyes once from Harold.

It was said that her face was the hue of snow and
that she grappled the arm of one of her companions
in a vice. She was too much moved to speak mere
idle words of praise or encouragement. She was the
sister of the boy.

In five minutes more succor came. Two laborers
let down a slender rope, with which Harold bound the
boy's waist, who began to cry in the most natural
manner. He was told to hold on tightly, and foot by
foot he was drawn safely up and landed on the top
of the cliff, very little the worse for his mishap.

His rescuer no v proceeded to free himself from his
own surroundings. Strange as it may seem, it was a

HAROLD.

141

much more treacherous ascent than descent, but Har-
old shunned the rope, which was quite insufficient to
support more than a child's weight, and proceeded to
work his way sideways to the summit. He continued
in this manner until he hung directly over a sort of
projecting ledge, thirty-five feet below, and his right
hand grasped a shrub two feet from the top.

" Good Heavens, but he should not be allowed to
climb that without help !"

It was again the grateful sister who spoke. One of
the laborers was in the act of reaching down to give
him aid, and the whole party was viewing the task as
already accomplished, when the stone loosened in its
clayey socket, a set of sable fingers clutched nervously
at the brow of the precipice, and the next moment the
body of Harold shot downward, a cry of horror echo-
ing along its course.

CHAPTER XXI.

M Have you eyes ?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed
And batten on this moor?"

— Hamlet.

Harold lay for weeks in the shadow of death. His
falling upon the earthy ledge instead of on the rocks
below alone saved his life. Mr. Markham, the uncle
of the child so heroically rescued, had summoned the
best medical aid, and himself took a deep interest in
the brave black's recovery.

As for Miss Mildred Markham, her gratitude gave
way to a sense of acquired right in a hero. Shelold
the story of the rescue fifty times, and in each repe-
tition she bequeathed an additional fascination to her
listeners. So attractive did the tale become in her
hands, that the young men and the newspaper reporters
fancied for a moment they were listening at the court of
Haroun to a romance from the lips of Schehezerade.

As for Harold, he remained, like the Abyssinian
prince in the tale, a captive in spite of himself. Par-
tially returned to consciousness, he found that his arm
and leg had been broken and that he had sustained
other, if slight injuries. As his eyes became fully
opened and bis vision .more alert, he had found these
riveted on a beautiful young woman standing over him
at his bedside. Then he remembered the events just

HAROLD.

143

preceding the accident and inquired about his sur-
roundings.

" Where am I ?" he asked, in a feeble whisper.

A doctor was in the room now. An ill- concealed
sneer was on his lips even as he bid his patient com-
pose himself.

" There, there, George, take it easy— don't talk,"
he said, almost flippantly.

Harold gritted his teeth. A couple of decades be-
fore this doctor would, in the same way, have called
him Cuffy. Harold learned that L'Heureux had
been there, and having convinced himself that his
friend's injuries were not fatal, had begged that he
might be removed as .soon as that process could be
effected without danger. Mr. Markham had himself
replied to this request, and first became aware, from
some answers let fall by L'Heureux, that the savior of
his little orphan nephew was no ordinary black. At
the dinner-table the quality of his linen had first in-*
vited discussion by the female members of the house-
hold. The stamp of gentility which Harold habit-
ually bore, apparent even in repose and under his jet
skin, became a nine- days' wonder among the domes-
tics.

Then came the long fever. The pent-up torments
of many weary months now found a wild, incoherent
ebulliency in his ravings. Harold fancied himself a
lord who had been wronged of his rights. At another
time he called wildly for his horse, and wept because
Herr Felix had ordered the animal shot. He mistook
the Irish domestic who entered the apartment for his
old nurse, Ellen Shaw, dead and buried these many

144

HAROLD.

years. He called Miss Markham Lady May, to her
utter amazement and the physician's sneering curiosity.

But over all these fantasies hung the deep black
shadow of Inigo Bright as of a great demon, which
was forever moulding Harold to his ends or threaten-
ing him with horrible torments. Over all the lesser
characters in the sick man's trance spread the figure
of the Experimentist.

" Look, look!" he would shriek; " there, there
he is ! Oh, no, no ; I cannot do it ! He is pointing
at me ! I must do as he bids." Then he would cower
on his pillow as if a real Titan had held out a threat-
ening and a powerful clutch over his head.

When Mildred Markham was not reading poetry
and novels or writing, she sat listening to these strange
utterances of the sick man. At first she thought their
allusions to be a not unnatural hallucination. They
were the hollow vaporings of a fevered dream. But
continued day after day, regular, appealing, and con-
sistent, her own imagination took fire. Mildred was
an orphan. Her uncle being a weak, indulgent
man, who was rather afraid of his niece, saw the
machinations of genius in her every simple caprice.
He would have placed the half-dying youth in a cot
in the barn or woodshed, if Mildred had not ordered
him transported to one of the lightest, airiest rooms
in the whole house. This room bordered on the
lower veranda. Thither the young woman came and
sat, and marvelled and speculated, and nursed him as
only an ardorous, spoiled feminine temperament can,
for whole summer afternoons. She charged the
regular attendant to tell her all the* young sufferer

HAROLD.

145

said which could shed any light on his past. For a
time she actually forgot herself in the thought of a
possible romance. She dreamed of Harold as a brave
and generous Othello, and in the dim, uncertain light
a yielding Desdemona became at once visible.

At another time a change came across the spirit of
her dreams, and Harold would be Rasselas or Aladdin
amid the draped ravishment of Oriental finery.

An idle girl can imagine almost anything under the
blue vault of heaven.

One day her maid brought her a packet of letters
and papers which had been found in Harold's coat
while the garment was being brushed. Harold's
horse had grown sleek and fat during his master's
illness. Harold's linen had been changed during his
fever and his clothes hung up. Mildred Markham
could not resist the curiosity to examine these epis-
tles. There were many verses written by the hand
and from the heart of this man. A letter from Arthur
Danthorne, dated from the Embassy at Paris, made
her start and leap like a child with curiosity and won-
derment. Surely mortal eye had never rested upon
such gentility and such pathos bound in so uncouth a
covering before. One of the verses, entitled " Isola-
tion," set her brain fairly dancing with its suggestive-
ness. The verses ran in this fashion :

" All mankind is moving round me,
With its restlessness of mind ;
But Fate's mighty chains have bound me
In a prison from my kind.

" Others have their pain and pleasure,
Others have their ends to gain,

146

HAROLD.

Moving to the world's great measure,
I alone have only pain !

u While yon millions, happy, hoping,
Feel all that youth has e'er to give,
In the darkness I am groping,
Hardly deeming that I live.

" Is there no one— God, give answer
"Who knows solitude like mine,
Is it that my soul is denser ?

Has my heart blood changed to brine

14 Heartstrings dulled, no chord respond
Save to touch of sympathy.
Surely others like despondeth,
Surely some are lone as I !"

When Mildred read this poem she was profoundly
touched. For the first time since her childhood she
abandoned selfishness. One must first understand her
character. She had often wept for herself, never for
another's woes. She burst into tears. She thought
she saw a strange analogy in the yearnings of her own
life to that of the man who had risked his life to save
that of her infant brother. She crept out of her cham-
ber and entered the room where Harold lay. His
countenance wore a placid smile and he was wrapped
in sleep. An indescribable feeling came over her as
she surveyed the worn and wasted figure on the
couch.

When Harold Bright opened his eyes the next day
Mildred Markham was near him. He thanked his
benefactress again and again for her kindness toward
him as soon as she had revealed herself to him.

In return, Mildred asked him to tell her the story

HAROLD.

147

of his life. She knew it was impossible that he could
be that which he seemed. But in his stronger and
better moments Harold would not have yielded to
this request. To relate the history of his childhood
and youth and travels, all of which he owed to Inigo,
to a stranger, was revolting to his nature — he could
not tell why. But now a spell was upon him.

In low tones and simple imagery he set forth, some-
times painfully, to this girl of another race his own
strange history.

Mildred was touched by it ; she could not have been
otherwise. Gifted with a strong imagination, she ex-
aggerated his isolated condition and her own. She
scarcely dared to trust herself for several days in his
presence, Thus the crisis approached,

CHAPTER XXII.

" The eagle suffers little birds to sing.
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
He can at pleasure stint their melody."

— Shakespeare.

The very impossibility and madness of the affair
acted as fuel for Mildred's passion. Naturally Harold
was affected, too, but that is not so remarkable. In
the first place, no woman had ever spoken to him so
before ; no woman had ever cared for him thus. In
his weak state he continued to listen to the voice of
Mildred Markham with the shadow of the past upon
him.

Suddenly a great light broke upon his vision, and he
sent for L'Heureux and begged to return to the city.
The doctor opposed it, but Harold was obdurate.
Mildred Markham preferred to be silent. Perhaps
she was trying to battle with this unnatural predilec-
tion of hers, to stifle it ere it overpowered her. At
any rate, she kept to her room, and it was announced
that she was ill. It was not till after the black youth
had gone that her passion returned to her with ac-
cumulated force.

L'Heureux and his wife took Harold's return
gravely. They welcomed him with hearty affection.
As the physician had predicted, the change had done
him no good. In truth, a relapse had almost set in.

HAROLD.

149

He took to his bed and remained there for over a
fortnight. During this time Harold's brain all but
broken down with the continued strain of thinking.
He made notes in a tablet which he kept under his
pillow. He dictated a long leader for the paper to
L'Heureux, who at first would not hear of his
making such an effort. Wearied of speculation, his
mental activity took the form of iterated passages
from his favorite books. It was in this short fort-
night that many of his later and most dangerous
opinions were formed. A reference in a newspaper
L'Heureux was reading called forth his bitterest
anger and sarcasm.

" L'Heureux," he said, " let us come right down
to the issue frankly. What do you mean by the
4 equality of man5 ?"

66 Why," began L'Heureux, wonderingly, " I guess
you know pretty well. It's wdiat the Freeman has
been preaching."

" Oh, confound the Freeman /"

L'Heureux took umbrage.

Harold hastened to say :

16 Hold on, old fellow, don't be angry. Try and
answer my question. When you speak of all men
being equal, do you mean that they are really so ?"

" For political "purposes, yes. That is all 1 care
about."

" Very well. Do you recall that line in ' Felix Holt '
— 6 No party, religious or political , has laid it down as
a principle that all men are equally virtuous 9 ?
There's irony for you. But why do you say political ?
You grant there are social distinctions ?"

150

HAROLD.

"It wouldn't do to preach that doctrine in the
Freeman. Yes, there are several lines : the great one
between rich and poor, the small one between brains
and folly, and — and the ungranted one — between white
and black. "

"Yes," reflected Harold, grandiloquently; "the
line — the line — but what is it ?"
And then he wrote :

" The line, the defined, concise, circumscribed
boundary of social, political, and religious privileges,
that furnishes conservatism an excuse and fanaticism a
text ? Or the line, that hazy, ambiguous, apocryphal
division, jeered at by honest Tom and confirmed by
our philosophers, anarchists, and election-time pam-
phleteers ?' ' This he repeated aloud.

" Harold, where did you learn to talk like that ?"

It was L'Heureux who thus spoke indignantly.
Harold's words had hurt him. Harold's reply seemed
flippant and immaterial, and, thinking him unwell,
the senior editor of the Freeman quietly left the room.

In less than an hour after the foregoing conversa-
tion Harold arose and dressed himself unaided for the
first time since the accident. He reflected :

"Now why should L'Heureux be blind ? Equal-
ity— bah ! it almost makes me laugh. The tallest
pine and the most stunted fir yield alike to the wood-
man's axe, but that doesn't prevent" the pine from
having the most sunlight and the most air. Truly
we are all equal — in death. As the Frenchman says :
' The only thing common to all men is the common
end of all men.' We are all born and we all eat,
but you cannot spoil the epigram, for what about

HAROLD,

151

the silver spoons at birth and the diet of pheasant's
wings ? And, again, all birds fly, but it is the eagle
that soars the highest, and the tiny, paltry lark laughs
at the industrious barn fowl."

There is a simile for you, L'Heureux," pursued
Harold, bitterly. " The birds are all free, but what
would the hen do soaring under the vault of the blue
sky and the lark hopping laboriously over the barn-
yard fence ?"

Harold leaned his chest heavily against the frame
of the window and looked across the tops of the
houses. He watched the smoke of the chimneys and
went on musing. Of a sudden there, came a knock
at the door, and he called upon whoever it was to
enter. It turned out to be Cassius White, one of the
deacons of the church in Thirty th Street. Cas-
sius White was very much attached to Harold. He
was quite shocked to find him out of bed, and cau-
tioned him to be more careful of the doctor's injunc-
tions.

" Yo' kaint look out nigh enough, Mr. Bright.
This yere fever's a mighty delicate thing, and yo'
must be mighty particular, or there will surely come a
relapse."

" Sit down, Cassius," said Harold, unheeding the
other's remarks. " I'm glad you have come, for I
want to talk to you." There was silence for several
moments, and then the younger man said : " You
used to teach school once, didn't you ? At least,
I have heard so. Learned to read and write and
taught it to a number of freedmen just after the war."

Cassius White nodded.

152

HAROLD.

" All my teachers were white men, you know,'
pursued the younger man ; and after a pause : " Did
you believe the Reconstructionists when they told
you that you were now on a level with your masters ?"

u It came quite sudden, sure," returned Cassius,

" Well, they were lying," continued Harold, coolly.
He was feeling his way. He wished to test his new
line of thought. " They were lying to you, as you
know by this time, for mere political motives. It is
all very well for a mocking-bird, who has the un-
bounded ether of limitless space to soar in, to tell the
caged creature that it, too, is free ; but his telling
doesn't make it so any more than it does for one man
to tell another that he can henceforth fly, when it
happens that God made that man without wings.
Human physical conditions prevent equality — they
often make it impossible ; but the great lie remains
unatoned and unpunished. A lie has been told to
seven millions of hungry, simple, trusting people,
who have toiled on since with an unflagging, abiding
confidence, only to find when they come to the borders
of Canaan that the promised land is not for them."

" We certainly ought to have offices," reflected
Cassius.

" Ought to have !" repeated Harold, grimly —
" ought to have ! No, my friend, you are a fool.
It is the wisest of fools that knows his own folly.
As long as we are a race of gibbering idiots we should
have nothing — except revenge ; yes, even fools can
have that. Revenge ! The ' colored man ' forsooth !
Are wre ashamed of making Hack unfashionable if we
call ourselves so ? And you — you don't mean to be a

HAROLD,

153

fool. You are only a contemptible, misguided per-
son, my friend, to think that by labelling yourself
White to change men's opinion of you. Why call
yourself so ? I am sure that was not your master's
name. Go and petition the Legislature to-morrow
for a change. Anyway, you have sons, and perhaps
we who must act shall need them."

Cassius hobbled out of the room in the deepest
chagrin.

CHAPTER XXIII.

" A man should, whatever happens, stick to his own caste,
race, and breed. Let the white go to the white and black to the
black. Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of
things— neither sudden, alien, nor unexpected."— R. Kipling.

Upon his recovery Harold worked for whole hours
in the office of the paper without conversing much
with L'Heureux. He had more than once heard
from Mildred Markham — this much was plain. That
it racked him none could doubt. At such times he
grew hardened and his black visage became set like a
vice. It was not for hours, but for days at a time.
It seemed then as if he lost consciousness of his own
identity and brooded over the passage of mere circum-
stances.

One day in the ensuing autumn, a bright, crisp,
sunshiny morning, found him strolling meditatively
through the Park. The Freeman had gone to press
the day before, and it was the custom of both L'Heu-
reux and himself to snatch a half holiday at such times
each week. Time had been when L'Heureux accom-
panied him on these rides or rambles. Harold went
alone now. His erect, elastic figure moved along at
an easy pace, neither turning to the right nor to the
left, lest by any chance he should be unpleasantly
diverted by objects on the course. Any one who saw
him at such times usually looked twice. It was not a

HAROLD.

155

sight to be seen every day. Anderson, the wealthy
negro coal merchant, who owned his coach and pair,
was fond of pointing out the English black to his
friends as a type of what the race would be some day.
The whites admired Harold at sight ; when they heard
more of him they shook their heads and muttered the
one word. It was " Exception."

Harold never looked better in his life than on this
particular morning. He increased his pace for a mo-
ment down one of the winding paths which lead so
unexpectedly to sunken dells and benched nooks.
Now it ran into the equestrian roadway, overhung
with tall maples and elm shrubs. To continue on his
way by the route he had taken, it was necessary for
Harold to cross this road. He had taken a single step
forward when two figures on horseback loomed up
from behind the bend. Harold saw only indistinctly
that one was a female, and, merely reconsidering the
step he had taken, waited for the pair to pass without
further scrutiny. The next moment a strange thing
happened. The woman had drawn rein, reeled in her
saddle, and would have fallen if the black had not
sprung forth and grasped her arm. It was Miss Mil-
dred Markham. In another instant she had fainted
in his arms. Her companion was so astonished that
he lost his wits and could not have lifted a hand.
He was a pale youth in a very high collar.

" Run for some water, quick," said Harold, calmly.

The escort stared inanely.

" Will you go ?" Harold spoke fiercely, and this
high-born gentleman was off at the bidding of his late
bondsman. He returned with a tin cup wrenched

150

HAROLD.

from a fountain hard by the aqueduct, just as Harold
had lifted Miss Markham bodily from her horse and
laid her on the grass with her head on his knee. He
took the vessel from her escort in silence. "Wetting her
pocket-handkerchief, he bathed her forehead gently.
Miss Markham opened her eyes, looked around wildly
for a moment, and closed them again. It seemed as
if she were revolving the situation in her mind.
When she opened her eyes again she sprang unaided
to her feet. Looking her companion straight in the
face, she lifted her finger dramatically and uttered the
one word, " Go !"

If the youth had been a trained spaniel he could
not have obeyed more punctiliously. Mounting his
horse he wheeled about and gave Mildred a half -ter-
rified, half-appealing look, which she answered with
scorn. Almost immediately the hoofs of his horse
were echoing from the bend in the road.

Harold was the first to speak.

" Wasn't that injudicious ?" he said. He spoke
calmly, even reproachfully.

For answer Mildred Markham sprang toward him
like a wild creature, and winding her arms about his
neck, murmured passionately :

" I care nothing for the world. 1 love you !"

Months of self-repression told on both. Harold
found himself unmanned. As for the woman, she was
oblivious. The former was the first to rally. Taking
Mildred's arm with one hand and passing the bridle
of the horse through the other, he led them both
across the road. Deftly securing the animal to the
bough of a tree, he motioned his companion to artistic

HAROLD.

157

bench, to which he half drew, half bore her. She
was taken with a violent fit of weeping. A pair of
equestrians passed hurriedly. With admirable pres-
ence of mind Harold hung a handkerchief over his
brow. He did not care to attract unwonted attention.
Mildred observed the action.

" I hate the world!" she muttered, chokingly,
" because — they despise you."

Harold at length spoke.

" Stop, Miss Markham ! 1 must — it is my duty to
recall you to yours. "

Mildred paid no attention to the spirit of the
speech.

" Miss Markham ? " she asked, petulantly.

" Mildred, then, if you will. Do not think I
haven't struggled over this thing," he went on,
hastily ; " I am of different clay from yours. God
never intended that we should wed — "

" "Wed ! Wed ! Gracious Heaven ! why wed ?
What do I care for marriage. I ask for your love."
And she clasped him more tightly than ever, as if
fearing his defection.

" But do you not think of me ?" Harold asked,
with reproach in his tone.

" You, you! Do we not both hate the world?
What has it to give either of us ? Let us fly ! I have
money, wealth in my own right. We can be together,
Harold! Ah!" cried Mildred, " you do not under-
stand, you do not know how I love you !"

The voice of the temptress sank deep into Harold's
lieart. The voice of the world did not seem as strange
to him as to her. He was by breeding a gentleman.

158

HAROLD.

The distinctions of race were comparatively new.
When his eyes had been opened he had thought his
entire existence blighted forever, With the unselfish
strength he had left he had already done all in his
power to prevent, put away, and blot out the love
of one whom he had come to learn of a higher,
nobler race. Fate had again thrown it across his path.
Why should he not take advantage of it ? He had
intended to revenge himself on the world for the mis-
fortune of his being in it. He had planned to devote
himself and his talents to the race — to revenge himself
in avenging their wrongs. But why further expose
himself to insult and humiliation ? Here was a woman
whom he had fascinated so intensely that she forgot her
very self-respect. It did not occur to Harold that if
he had been of her own race she perhaps would not
have cared for him. Besides, he loved her. He
could love her more. He could honorably accept her
fortune. But honorably or not, what did it matter to
him, an outcast, a pariah, a leper, what were the
world's customs and forms to one whom his equals did
not recognize as an equal and never would unto eternity,
if they could help it ? All this Harold thought as he
looked for an instant into Mildred's face, and yet he
answered :

" Stop ! Our ways in life lie apart. It is true I
love you, but we must never meet again. Another
instant and 1 should have been lost forever, and my
name and yours would have been irretrievably ruined.
1 hate to think of the consequences which would re-
sult from such a union as ours. Mount your horse,5
Miss Markham, and return to your father. Black as

HAROLD.

159

I am, the world shall not say I could do so black a
deed. Black, black— in all its fairness black."

So saying, he led his companion from their seat and
bid her mount. Mildred, dazed, speechless with com-
bined anger and sorrow, obeyed. Harold did not
even take her hand : he only bowed reverently. Then
giving a sign to the animal, he waited until it had
started, and listening to the echoes in the distance, he
placed his hat firmly on his head and strode back over
the path.

CHAPTER XXIV.

" By Heaven, thy love is black as ebony !"

— Love' s Labour1 s Lost

That night the legions of anger, misery, hate, and
regret flanked and reflanked themselves before Har-
old's fevered vision. All through the thick and silent
shadows he tossed upon his pillow. He was the prey
of a million merciless fancies. When the gray, cold
spirit of dawn came creeping into the chamber, it
found a man morally racked and helpless. Harold
Bright had been tempted. He had resisted without
even the hope of moral applause.

Insidiously and without his being wholly aware of
it, there came to him with the dawn a much stronger
emotion. Hate of the world had' at length joined his
side. Hate of the white had stolen across his outer
battlements and intrenched itself in the place of the
moral agent.

Harold slept two hours after dawn, but his dreams
were ghastly.

"When the sleeper awoke the new power had taken
possession of his breast, and his mind as to his future
was thoroughly made up. He would sell his one-third |
interest in the Freeman to L'Heureux, if the latter
wished it. It was his by every right. He had toiled
years for it, and the paper had become prosperous.

HAROLD.

161

When he had received the money he determined to
travel. His desire now was to tread on Southern
soil. He had reasons in his own breast for visiting
that section of the vast country wherein he had elected
to live.

Actuated by these impulses, Harold hastily arose.
He had not shown similar alacrity for many weeks.
As he prepared his toilet he soliloquized.

It was true, he said to himself, he had now a new
incentive for life and action, but it seemed to him
paltry and unworthy compared with his old ideals.
He no longer held the old ambition. It is the stern
delight of striving that animates men and sends the
Mood bounding through their veins. Harold Bright
had been ambitious, but he had not had a defined
ambition. Long ago, though, after that first inter-
view with L'Heureux, ambition had helped him rally
from the shock which his pride and manhood had re-
ceived.

" Surely I can become somebody — something here,"
he had said. " If God has lifted me above my race,
why should these and all the world not see me above
their heads ?"

He wras one, indeed, who struggled against the
tide. As the months and years had slipped by
doubt and despair at times found a haven in his heart,
but he never permitted himself to mistrust his own
powers. Once, when he, months ago, had done
something particularly clever which attracted the
notice of a great journal of the metropolis, everybody
hastened to congratulate him. Harold enjoyed their
praise.

162

HAROLD.

And each year, separated as lie was from the great
body of his race by the only true distinction of the
human body politic, he lost his buoyancy as he divined
more. The anomaly of his situation had at first been
a novelty which, degrading as it was, he could bear
cheerfully and did. But as the novelty wore away, he
had set himself about examining his fellows and dis-
covering if the writers of the books he had read were
right or wrong. Where did. his race stand ? What
was his status ? This for two years had been his
greatest study. From it he had turned, as he could
but have done, with chagrin and wretchedness.

"If they wouldn't lie to us, L'Heureux, it
wouldn't be so hard to bear !" he once said, stormily.
" Why does H — — swear we are his equals, when he
knows he is lying. His bringing up statistics in the
Senate to prove that the colored man is enjoying
social and political privileges he never enjoyed before
is insulting to us and a whole nation. We can't all
be journalists, L'Heureux, and the rest of us are still
porters and cooks and hod-carriers. We are toler-
ated by our dear friends ! How can we encourage
manhood among us when our pride and self-respect is
every day trampled upon. I never take a seat in a
common street car but what I am humiliated. We
may be physically clean, intellectually superior, and
even pecuniarily above them, yet they recognize no
exceptions and brand us all swine alike."

" You will get used to it," stated L'Heureux, with
cold candor ; "it is because your spirit is high and
because you are so sensitive."

" I hope to God it will be broken soon. One

HAROLD.

163

would think we were lepers and covered with sores
instead of being merely black."

" I could tell you why," began L'Heureux, but he
was silent. Ye&r§ £)f . observation had taught him to
see racial antipathy in its proper light.

But Harold had not always been moping. He had
laid himself out to please at times, and succeeded
admirably. He attended Sarah L'Heureux' s parties
with enthusiastic regularity, and won the hearts of the
black belles as no black had ever done before. He
had quickly learned to adapt himself to them and their
tastes.

Then suddenly, without warning, had come the inci-
dent on the Palisades — that strange, double infatuation
of Mildred Markham and himself. He had thought
it all over and relegated to the past his past, so for-
tuitous and so unique. Then the shadow had again
fallen upon him.

This time Harold's reason almost tottered. It is
difficult to see how he could have escaped eternal
blight if a strange thing had not happened. A little
seed took root in his mind.

The name of the seed was Hate. It was of the
kind whose fruit is vengeance.

Harold dressed himself this morning and descended
to breakfast. After the repast he mentioned his sud-
denly formed resolve to L'Heureux. It seemed as if
L'Heureux could scarce believe his ears.

" But, Bright," he faltered, in astonishment, u the
idea of selling your share. I have told you again and
again you have done more than I to make the Free-
many

164

HAROLD.

" Yes ; but I must go. In fact, my old friend, I
have determined to leave for South Carolina to-mor-
row."

L'Heureux stopped and looked at his companion,
amazed.

"Well, of course," he began, "you know best;
but wait, why do you wish to sell what you have
earned ? You are going South. That is the very
thing. I have often wanted to go, but — but you
know the risk for me. The whites are not fond of an
educated colored man, a 'nigger out of his place.'
Why can you not go in the interests of the Freeman V\

Harold had not thought of that. He was quite
touched at his friend's kindness.

"It will take money, L'Heureux," he said, at
length. " I do not intend to separate myself entirely
from the Freeman^ but you know how we differ."

" Yes, I know. We think differently now. I do
not know what you think, Harold, but I have seen
the change. Perhaps I guess but half of it !"

" You would not have me write that which you
know I do not believe."

6 i You are right ; although at last our roads have
begun to diverge, the scenery and environments of both
paths are identical. We have still much in common ;
besides, you may yet retrace your steps. Go South
and write of what you see. I will give you the
money. I shall draw five hundred dollars from the
bank this morning, representing, you know, part of the
paper's surplus fund," L'Heureux added with a
laugh.

But the two friends had, indeed, lately become much

HAROLD.

1G5

estranged. L'Heureux was devoted to the interests
of his race. He believed in the future of himself and
kind. He fancied he saw a gradual working out of
the destiny of his race. The negro was to take his
seat on the level of the white man. The hand that
was to hold the sceptre of government was to be black
in proportion as the sinewy arm that wields the axe of
labor now is. Education was to accomplish all this.
In his appeal to the Convention of the Children of
African Ancestry he had said : " Ultimately in the
homes of the colored people will the so-called race
problem be solved." The editor of the Freeman
saw injustice in not fully recognizing the black man
as a man and brother, but Bright began to see and
appreciate the injustice of recognizing him from the
first at all.

Harold delayed his departure for two days longer.
L'Heureux accompanied him across the Hudson to
the depot and bade him an affectionate God-speed.
As for L'Heureux, he sincerely thought his friend
and co-worker was suffering from a mental struggle,
such as he himself had previously known and corn-
batted. L'Heureux knew nothing of Mildred Mark-
ham.

The journey was quick, quiet, and engaging — that
is, his fellow-travellers found it so. Among Harold's
papers, letters of introduction to the towns and :ections
he proposed to visit found no place. It invariably hap-
pened that the black man of most political and social
importance in each city was the Freeman's special
correspondent and stanch adherent. It is difficult to
appreciate the great power and circulation the paper

166

HAROLD.

had by degrees obtained among negroes who were
almost illiterate ; but its prestige was recognized, and
Harold Bright was, as events proved, hailed with
every evidence of cordiality. The day upon which
he arrived in Charleston was very different from that
upon which he had landed in America five yeais
since. Although the seasons were close upon each
other, the sun now shone with increasing splendor.
The air, instead of being bleak and damp, shed mild
vapors over the city.

CHAPTER XXY.

" And moved through life of lower phase."

Two figures were seated in the haze of a November
twilight.

" You ought certainly to be content," mused the
first speaker, as if in comment on a personal narrative
he had just heard.

" Yes, sah," assented the other, earnestly; " 1
reckon I ought."

" You have a pleasant home ?"

" Yes, right pleasant."

" And good health ?" *
" Well, I ain't complainin'. I s'pose ef the white
man would give us a show I'd be certainly content ;
but he ain't a-done it an' he ain't a-gwine to. I've
given up hopm' he ever will. Yo' got to go North
fo' politics, an' I ain't a-gwine to leave (less I'm
compelled to) fo' no man. Yo' see, Mr. Bright, I was
raised right yere, an' I don't want to leave or let the
folks leave if I kin help it."

Abel Kurtz was the name of the last speaker. He
was fortunate in being one out of a thousand of ex-
slaves. He had acquired a home and considerable
property and a paying business. His white fellow-
citizens never had any trouble with Abel, for Abel,
if any man did, " knew his place'' and kept in it.
A cook during the war, Abel was now employed in a

168

HAROLD,

somewhat higher capacity by some of the best families
of Charleston. Abel Kurtz was a clear-headed, intel-
ligent negro, obsequious to the whites at all times
when it was to his advantage to be so. Always good-
natured, polite, it was only upon rare occasions that
he was hail-fellow-well-met with his own race. He
led Harold into his cosey sitting-room, where the open
fire, burning brightly, threw shadows on the tasty furni-
ture and bric-a-brac, and presented him to his wife
and daughters. After a wholesome, well-cooked re-
past and a short chat with the family, Harold begged
to be shown to his room. Harold slept in the best
apartment in the house and slept soundly. On the
morrow, almost before the sun was up, he had risen and
walked out to the Battery, pacing its walks and gazing
out at sea.

It was then that, as his eye drank in the smooth
surface of the bay, skimmed by restless gulls and
fanned by fruit-scented breezes from the Gulf, his
heart for a moment forgot its trouble, and he again
felt a child's emotions. He no longer remembered
that a heavy burden lay upon him for all time.
Harold forgot the curse of Canaan. He was by tem-
perament a man who would have deemed a lowly fate
by far the happiest, but philosophize as he would, he
could not reconcile himself to the one he found him-
self in. In the crisp morning sunlight health, peace,
and fresh air appeared to him inestimable treasures,
for wrhich he would exchange all the feverish hopes
and hollow joys of an urban existence. The motives
which had brought him where he was were tempo-
rarily lost. A boyish gladness surged in his souk

HAROLD,

169

Then it was that he suddenly came to himself, and
the frenzied look he cast at the water beating upon
the Battery stones startled the negro boatman who
saw him from below. When he became wholly calm
and rational, he found himself walking very fast back
to his host's house.

Abel Kurtz, the caterer, in a white vest and a
massive watch-chain, stood awaiting him on the piazza.

"X was most afraid yo' wouldn't be back in time
fo' breakfast, Mr. Bright," he said, grinning.

Harold responded with a smile.

Abel thought to himself :

" A mighty fine gentleman, this yere ! Wouldn't
think to hear him talk he was a nigger at all. Hit
beats all I ever see."

To Harold the honest caterer said :

" My young master used to take er walk befo5
breakfast every morning. He's dead and done buried
a long time now. But he war a mighty likely man.
A fine man war Master Charles." The old fellow
even wiped away a tear. " Have another cup of
coffee, Mr. Bright ?"

The three daughters of the old man were present at
the meal. The eldest was twenty-five, the youngest
about fourteen. All had received a fair education,
but one had profited by it more than the rest. Emily,
the middle daughter, had developed a sensitive soul,
and came to be thought morbid. She was the only
member of this black household who remained shut
up in the house. In the affairs to which her elder
sister devoted her time and presence she was con-
spicuous by her absence. She was ashamed of her

170

HAROLD.

race, malicious people said. Harold gleaned these
facts during the day, for her black sisters, and espe-
cially her mother seldom let an occasion pass to good-
humoredly twit her about it ; but the girl herself was
silent, even to taciturnity. Harold learned as much
as he could from Abel Kurtz and his family. In the .
afternoon he drove out with Basie, the eldest daughter, t
who showed him the city, its people and its mag-
nolia-trees. She told him incidents of the earthquake
and drove him out to the cemetery to look at the
picturesque and historic graves.

When they returned Harold found a lot of well-
dressed negroes awaiting him, friends of Abel Kurtz.
The old man introduced Harold to the assemblage
with great and unctuous pride, as sincere as it was
effusive. The black had long ago accustomed himself
to these homely greetings, and had become inured
to the inspection and admiration which he invariably
evoked. He, perhaps, never forgot that he had
once shone in the salon of a Mme. de Salecy, but
entered into the spirit of his bitter surroundings with
ingenuous pleasantry.

There were several of the most elect negro families
present. One person, a pilot and a mulatto, essayed
to be particularly witty and engaging. He told a good
tale with gusto and kept the table in a roar. It tran-
spired that he was in love with Emily Kurtz, who had
already refused him twice. But the good-natured
pilot was in no way put out. It was evident that
he still thought his chances good to win the woman
of his choice. After supper Abel Kurtz brought out
some really excellent cigars. Abel lived well.

HAROLD.

171

One of the company volunteered to tell a story.
The narrator was an educated mulatto, lately a graduate
of one of the great negro universities in the South.
He was a physician, and told the following story with
much pathos and quiet humor.

THE STORY OF MESSIAH.

Messiah (he began) was a negro of the old regime.
When the fighting in his part of Mississippi was all
over, Messiah, two black wenches and little black
Pete were the only slaves left on the plantation.

When the master of the plantation was sure that
the war was really over, the South whipped and him-
self ruined, he suddenly disappeared, after bequeathing
his property to his nieces ; and it became currently
rumored that he had shot himself through the head.

Messiah was a pretty old man then, and was known
for miles around as a born musician. When the old
man got his banjo down from its peg and began
a-thrummin', there was pretty sure to be listeners.
Messiah would have been worth a small fortune in the
l^orth, friends of his master used to say.

Well, 'Siah was pretty old now, and he had been a
slave of the dead master all his life and part of his
master's father before him. So when he heard the
old slave-driver was dead, he forgot all the beatings,
and all the thrashings, and all the stringings-up he
had got from him, and bowed down and cried as if

Note. — The Story of Messiah is a genuine piece of folk-lore.
It is quite distinct from the story, and it is here introduced in
order to depict the " old-time negro," or the " negro of ante-bel-
lum days." — The Author.

172

HAROLD.

his heart would break. The two wenches were rather
attached to Uncle 'Siah, and tried to comfort him, but
it was no use.

" lie done been a good, kind marster to me, honeys,
I's alone in the world now, shore !" he would say.

Shortly afterward the girls went away and married.
Nobody bought the estate, and so for a time 'Siah and
little Pete were permitted to occupy it unmolested,
and might have done so for many years, while the
timbers in the old mansion rotted away and the acres
went to waste.

Regularly, as he had done every Sunday morn-
ing for years past, 'Siah would put on the old black
frock-coat which had once belonged to Marster, and
leading little Pete by one arm and toting his be-
loved banjo in the other, would sally over to the
village, which was five miles distant, to attend church.
When the services in the house of God were over,
which wTas usually about noon, Messiah would strike
a bee-line for Cap'n Hunt's place, on the hill, to
play for the great folks assembled there. Mar'sr
Hunt was nearly, if not quite as old as the old darky
himself, but he always declared up to the day of his
death that there was nobody who could play the ban jo
like 'Siah. When 'Siah's master had sent himself
where thousands of his neighbors had been sent by
the Yankees during the cruel war, Cap'n Hunt had
offered the old man a home, but Messiah said :

" No ; I lak to live heah, Mars'r Hunt, but I done
kaint leave de old place. De ol5 man ain't long here
nohow, and he gwine sooner if he leave home."

And so he came tramping over every week, as he had

HAROLD.

173

done for forty years, to thrum for the servants and the
visitors, and the old master, most of all, on the Hunt
plantation. And the cap'n saw that Messiah and his
little protege, Pete, were well provided for and never
went hungry. As the months slipped by 'Siah be-
came more and more convinced that his late Marster
(who, to tell the truth, was a heartless, cold-blooded
wretch, even to his betters) was as good a gentleman
as had ever lived and a paragon of mercy and ami-
ability. In the daytime he would busy himself hoe-
ing a little corn patch he cultivated back of the man-
sion or tending the neglected flower-beds. "When
evening came and the sun was just going down, Han-
nah, the cook on the adjoining plantation, would send
him over his supper, which he would share with Pete,
and then the two would sit out and watch the great
orb slowly sink behind the hills in perfect peace and
contentment. At this moment, every evening, Pete
would say : " Uncle 'Siah, kin I fotch it now ?"

66 Hoi' on a minit, honey. Sh' ain't done sot yit.
Nev' kin play 'cep'n Sundays 'till de sun sots right
down behin' de trees." Then he would say : " Run,
chile, fotch 'er, fotch 'er, turn turn. Massy sakes,
how de music jes' ooze out'n de ol' man's fingers!
I kin feel it— turn — turn — all a-runnin' up 'n' down
my naik 'n' backbone. 'Pears lak it most got to
come out somehow. Hand it yere, hon'," continued
'Siah.

" There wuz a ol' nigger who couldn't leave de home,
Turn — turn — ty — turn — turn,
And all de ol' folkses ast him fo' to room,
Turn — turn — ty — turn — turn ;

174

HAROLD.

But de marster done died, and de nigger had ter stay,
An* de white 'un and de niggers er couldn't draig him away,
Turn — tum — ty — tum — turn. ' '

"Pete!"

" Yes, Uncle 'Siah," said the little pickaninny.
" You ain't done forgot what I tol' yer about
Marster?"

" Mars' r Hunt, uncle ?"

" Look heah, chile," said Messiah, with a tinge of
sternness in his voice, " yaint but one Marster what
I tells yo' about he dead. Mars'r Runt, he a good
man, he a smart man, he seen a heap o' trouble,
Mars'r Hunt. Yes, an' lie a good man, and he a
pow'ful rich man ; but Mars'r Hunt ain't Marster.
Yo5 Uncle 'Siah er free nigger now, and dey hain't
but one Marster fo' dis yere me and he. Whar am he,
Pete, boy ?"

" A-sittin' at the right hand of God, Unc' 'Siah,"
replied Pete, solemnly, and with a kind of awe.

The old darky had taught him to say this. Mes-
siah leaned his body back, and holding his beloved
banjo partly in his lap and partly resting on the
ground, looked long and fixedly at the firmament.

" 'Pears to me, honey, 1 kin see Marster a-sittin'
up there by de side ob de Lawd. Look mighty
peart, I reckon, with his white angel's wings on and
his long black hair a-flowin' over his sho'ders, an' — -

" I dream I see a angel bright,
Rise up, Moses, rise up ;
With flappin' wings and garments white,

Bise up, Moses, rise up ;
And the angel says, says he, ter me,
Rise up, 'Siah, lise up ;

HAROLD.

175

I's a gwine to carry you 'long with me,
Kise up, Moses, rise up, "

" Dere's one ol' song I haben't sung since marster
died. Reckon I ain't done iorgot it, honey."

Messiah had been so absorbed in his song and his
preceding rapt meditations, that he was entirely ob-
livious of the fact that Pete had curled up his little
black legs on the stoop and gone to sleep. The old
man laid down the banjo and picked Pete up tenderly
and laid him on his cot inside the cabin.

" Done tol' that chile he worked too much t'-day.
Ain't qF enuff yit to tote plants lak a growed up
nigger. It done tired me, too, powerful. Now,
what was I — hope I haben't disremembered it. Oh,
yes—

" There wuz an old nigger, and his name was Uncle Ned,

There's one more ribber to' ter cross ;
And he had no mo' wool on de top of his head,

There's one more ribber fo' ter cross.
Uncle Ned he went to de edge ob de stream,

There's—"

Just as he got to the first word of the refrain a
strange black figure emerged from the darkness. It
was so much darker than the night itself that Messiah
had no difficulty in discerning it fully. It was black
from head to foot, and with a strange sensation of
awe and amazement 'Siah saw that two dusky wings
projected from each of its shoulder-blades.

" Uncle 'Siah," says a deep, hollow voice, such as
'Siah had heard tell of in graveyards.-

The old man was so frightened he couldn't answer.
His tongue clove resolutely to the roof of his mouth.

176

HAROLD.

" 'Si ah, do yon hear me talking to you ?"

44 Who — who is yo5 V 5 whispers 'Siah, trembling
all over his old decrepit body.

" "What ! Don't you know your old Marster, 'Siah ?
I am your old Marster, 'Siah, before God."

If the apparition had declared himself to be one of
the celestial cherubim or the devil himself outright,
Messiah would have believed him ; but to assert that
he was the ghost of the late worshipped and lamented
old slave-driver was a strain upon the old nigger's
credulity which even his terror could not bolster up.
So 'Siah plucked up and answered :

" Who dat say he my Marster ? Who dat say he
my Marster ? 'Pears to me I heah er lot about young
an' wuthless niggers tryin' ter scar' 'spectable folkses.
Who done say he my Marster ?"

At this the shade came a step nearer, and, sure
enough, old 'Siah saw his master's long hair and
master's scarred cheek, and everything about master
but his white skin. The apparition was black all
over.

" 'Siah, do you recognize me now ? Are you glad
to see your old master ?"

But 'Siah was still unconvinced.

44 Wha' dem two t'ings a-stickin' out'n yo' back ?"

44 Those are wings, 'Siah ; I use them to fly with
up in heaven.' '

'Siah forgot himself so far as to say :

44 Go 'long, chile ; whaSer yo' try to conjure and
fool dis yere ol' — why, yo' black — angel ?"

Instead of replying to 'Siah's taunting query, the
figure bent a look of reproach upon the old darky,

HAROLD.

177

and, coolly flapping his wings, began to mount in the
air before 'Sialics astonished eyes.

44 Lord hab mercy !" shrieked 'Siah. u Come back,
angel, come back ! I's on'y a ol', broke-down, no-
account nigger. I didn't mean ter doubt yo'. Come
back, angel !"

The apparition descended again.

i% Do you believe me now, 'Siah ?"

'Siah hesitated.

" If yo' is my Marster fo' shore, how yo' comes so
black?"

" Because 1 used to beat you, 'Siah, and the Lord
punished me for it. He says that as long as old 'Siah
plays a banjo I have got to be black. And the Lord
loves a banjo mighty well, 'Siah."

" Shore enuft, honey?" asked 'Siah, delightedly.

u He dotes on it. When I came up to get into
heaven I couldn't get in, because the Lord said I
shouldn't have beat Uncle 'Siah that played the banjo
so well. Finally the Lord let me into the gates of
Paradise, but He turned me black until Uncle 'Siah
lays down the. old banjo, never to take it up no more."

u Why is yo' come ter night, Marster V ' said 'Siah,
after a pause.

" Because you played the old tune that you played
when 1 gave you that awful beating back of the
smoke-house, when I heard the Yankees were comin'.
I been a- waiting a long time for you to play that, but
you never did do it until to-night. Do you believe
me now ?"

" What night was dat, Marster ?" said 'Siah.

" On a Saturday night, 'Siah ; I'll never forget it."

178

HAROLD.

" Bress de Lawd ! Hallelujah ! Tou'se my Mars-
ter, shore/'5 exclaimed the old man in a transport.
" Saturday night it was, shore, 'cause 1 had ter go to
bed, yo' licked me so hard. Couldn't play for Mars'r
Hunt Sunday mo'ning. You'se Marster."

With these ejaculations the joyful darky ran to
embrace the old slave-driver, only to find that he had
vanished into thin air. 'Siah heard the wind sighing
through the pines and saw the stars twinkling over-
head, but no trace of his master could he find any-
where. Weeks passed by, and 'Siah never touched
his beloved banjo, except when he went to play and
sing at Mars'r Hunt's. He became more rigorously
pious than ever, and spent his time star-gazing and
wondering what Marster was doing up in heaven, and
thinking what dreadful punishment the Lord had
visited upon him.

One evening, after little Pete had gone to bed,
Aunt Charlotte came over to visit Unc' 'Siah from
the adjoining plantation.

" 'Pears to me lion1, yo' lookin' mighty bad.
Yo' haben't had a chill, hab yo' ? You'se gettin'
mighty oP, unc'. Does yo' eat all I sends over to
yo' ?"

" .Reckon I does, Sha'lott. Nuffin5 de matter
wif me, 1 tells yo'. How's missy, Sha'lott ?"

" Poorly, Unc' 'Siah, poorly. Doctor say she be
all right presently, though. Pete a-growin' inter a
great big chile, shore, eh, unc' ? Well, I gotter go,
lion'. I gwine to give 'em all yo' love. Good-by,
Uncle 'Siah, and tak' good care yourself."

A sudden inspiration seized 'Siah when Charlotte

HAKOLD.

179

was gone to take down the old banjo from where it
had hung every week-day since his old Marster's visit.
To tell the truth, 'Siah had literally been afraid to
touch it except in the presence of company. The
sight of the great black angel was too much for his
nerves. But to-night, the first thing he knew, he was
thrummin' away for dear life.

" I'd lak ter stand on Jordan's brink,

There's one more ribber fo' ter cross ;
And face ter face ol' Peter t'ank,

There's one mo' ribber fo' ter cross.
I never knowed where de Lawd ter find,

There's one mo' ribber fo' ter cross ;
He lef oY Peter far behin',

There's — ' '

" 'Siah !' ' said a voice behind him.

'Siah had heard the wings of the angel fluttering,
but he did not look round.

" Yes, Marster, I heah yo'," said Messiah, without
turning his head and keeping the strings of the instru-
ment still a-thrumming.

" Are you going to stop, Uncle 'Siah ?"

" Kaint do it, Marster," replied 'Siah, without
turning around.

" I's er-gwine to sit on Zion's mount,
And drink salvation from de fount,
There's one mo' ribber fo' ter cross,
One mo' ribber, one mo' ribber fo' ter cross."

" 'Siah, I have come back — "

" De Lawd be praised !" exclaimed 'Siah.

" And when I got to de top ob de hill
I saw oF Aaron—"

180

HAROLD.

" I have come back, 'Siah, to ask a favor of you.
I used to beat you mighty hard, 'Siah."

'Siah wheeled round in his excitement and faced
the angel.

" Who done say so? Didn't hardly feel it. Is
yo' really sorry, Marster ?"

" I am powerfully sorry, 'Siah. Recollect when I i
got you down in the wood-pile and pounded your head
between the pine sticks ?"

' ' La' yes, Marster. "

" Have you forgotten when I made Cuffee string
you up to the beam end and gave you thirty lashes ?"

" Forty, Marster," said 'Siah, rubbing his back at
the mere recollection. " Bat, Marster, what's de
favor yo' want o' me, Marster V '

The ghost of the slave-driver hesitated a mo ^ent
and then said :

" I want you to go into the house and get my old
snake lash. When you get it, lay it over my back as
hard as ever you can until I hollows for you to quit !
Do you hear me, 'Siah ?"

Messiah stared in astonishment.

" I nebber could do dat, dear Marster," he said.

" Then I'll be obliged to stay black ever so long,"
declared the apparition. " I thought I could depend
on you, 'Siah."

The old darky hesitated even before this heart-rend-
ing appeal. Such an exploit flavored strongly of the
diabolical rather than the celestial. It was a trifle
more than he had the fortitude to face. But, then,
Messiah had been brought up to stand in fear and
quaking of the Almighty wrath, and he knew that

HAROLD.

181

when the Lord decreed there was no rise grumbling.
If the Lord was willing to forego any further punish-
ment on the part of 'Siah's master through any act of
'Siah's, it would be a sin to refuse to let his master
suffer.

" It's dreadful dark and spook-like in de oV house,
Mars' r Ghost," said 'Siah. " Ts clar afraid ter fotch
dat lash. 'Sides, I's shore I never could find it in de
world, Marster."

While 'Siah said this he was revolving in his mind
all the beatings Marster had spoken of, and the more
he thought of them the more his present fear seemed
to fade dimly away. 'Siah was now an instrument of
the Lord. This was a very comforting and fortifying
reflection. What other incentives and reflections lay
at the bottom of his sudden change of spirit are per-
haps better conjectured. With a little more parley
with the shade of the late lamented planter, Messiah
was off into the house, and after a lapse of a few
moments returned with the long snake lash, which,
indeed, was properly so named.

" Lemme see, 'Siah," said the master. " Are you
sure this is the whip ? Looks mighty long and big."

As he cast his eye over the lash's sinister propor-
tions the shade shuddered.

" Dat's de oP lash, Marster."

The shade took it in his own hands and shuddered
again.

" Lordy-me ! why, it's at least two feet longer than
it used to be."

Messiah actually grinned. He had lost all fear
now.

183

HAROLD.

" Might hab growed, Marster."

The ghost seemed preoccupied.

u See here, 'Siah, I forgot what I told you. The
Lord said — Did I tell you to lay it on — ?"

" As hard and powerful as I kin, marster. Oh,
dat dis nigger had nebber been bo'n !"

As a matter of fact, 'Siah was quite cheerful at this
particular moment. It did not promise to be such a
bad thing, this serving the King.

In the meantime the angel had been busy removing
his wings, an operation which, until his late master
reassured him, 'Siah observed with returning alarm.

"'Siah, I've been a-thinkin' that — that you had
better lay it on light at first, and when you see me
getting white, for God's sake let me know. Let's
stand out where the moon can touch us."

Messiah now began to tremble again. He was
really so frightened at the bare thought of using the
lash on his master's body, that he was about to fall
on his knees and beg off, when he happened to think
how the wicked old slave-driver had once clipped off
a piece of his ear with this selfsame weapon. This
was an indignity which no respectable nigger could
bear.

" Marster, where will you have the fust crack ?"

" I'm ready now, 'Siah. The Lord's will be done !
Hallelujah to the Host ! Right across the shoulders,
'Siah. Glory to the Lamb !"

'Siah drew off, snapped the long lash into a sinister
ophidian coil in mid-air, and brought it down rather
mildly upon his Marster's bared shoulder blades.

" Ouch ! Yah ! Lord ! Ooooff— "

HAROLD.

183

The late planter danced and capered about in the
weird moonlight as if a thousand darts had been sud-
denly lanced into his flesh.

"Go on, 'Siah. Have it over quick! Ouch!
Ooof ! God in heaven ! Yah — h — h ! Roohh !

Errrrrrrh ! Oh h — h ! Mercy, Lord, mercy !

Yah— h— h !"

'Siah was now getting thoroughly warmed to his
strange task, and the way he made that whip fly was
wondrous to behold.

" Am I getting white, 'Siah ?"

" Not yit, marster," yelled back the old negro.

" Am 1 getting white now, 'Siah ?"

66 You'se — er — er — gittin' — brighter — honey,'' re-
plied 'Siah, between breaths.

The old planter's shrieks seemed to excite the old
man more and more. The great beating he got once
for losing a hoe, the thrashing he received one Christ-
mas Eve because Sis forgot to light the Marster's
fire, the time Marster pushed him down-stairs and
broke his arm — all came vividly back to his memory
and added fresh sinews to his arm. His late Marster
fairly shrieked in agony.

" Am — 1 — getting — whiter — 'Siah ?" he yelled.

'Siah looked, and sure enough his Marster's skin
was really undergoing a change.

" Yes, Marster — you a mulatto !"

" Praise the Lord ! Hallelujah ! Ooooff ! Am
— I—a — quadroon yet, 'Siah?"

u Love de Lamb ! Hallelujah ! Most a quadroon,
Marster," shrieked 'Siah.

" Am — I — oooff — a quadroon yet, Unc' 'Siah ?"

184

HAROLD.

" Hallelujah ! Praise de King ! Mary and Martha
a-callin', Glory t' de Lamb ! Keep her up, honey !
Now, yon'se a-got'er ! Keep er up, chile !"

'Siah had fallen into a merciless pendulum swing,
and gave vent to ejaculations peculiar to negroes when
chopping wood or performing any regular resonant
exercise.

His master was fairly choked with pain.

" Hoi' on, 'Siah. Gimme a rest, 'Siah ! Ouch !
Gr— rr! Yah— hh ! Hoi' on, 'Siah. For God's
sake, hoi' on !"

" Kaint stop now, Marster. Kaint go fo' to do
hit ! 'Member de wood-pile ! Martha and er Mary !
Er black a pickaninny ! Pickin' on de banjo! Don't
you quit, honey !"

All at once Marster sank on his knees, and 'Siah
could see by the moonlight that his skin was now quite
the color of an octoroon. With his poor flayed back
Marster was fast resolving into insensibility. Mes-
siah tried to stop, but he might as well have tried to
prevent the wind from blowing through the pines.
Faster and faster fell the blows, and whiter and whiter
grew his master. Noisier and noisier became the
breeze, and lighter and lighter became the landscape.

When the sun came up a party of negro farm-
hands, passing through the woods, found the old
darkey leaning breathless over the corpse of a white
man, who turned out to be none other than Mars'r
Williams, who had disappeared some months before.
'Siah had strayed out in his sleep, it was supposed,
and accidentally come across the body. Kind hands
picked the old darky up, and were for carrying him

HAROLD.

185

back to his old home ; but Messiah showed such signs
of terror that they carried him over to Mars' r Hunt's.
'Siah never played the banjo any more and never
told the story to any one but black Pete, to whom he
turned over the once beloved instrument.

I have the banjo nowT, and my name was once only
Pete,

CHAPTER XXVI.

" Let fools do good and fair man call for grace :
Aaron will have his soul black like his face.'"

— Titus Andronicus.

During the progress of this tale of folk-lore the
honest pilot's inamorata excused herself, her sisters
alleging that she went upstairs merely to mope.

Later in the evening her mother sent for her to
perform something for the company on the piano,
upon which instrument, it was proved, she could exe-
cute some very pretty selections and with spirit. Soon
after the girl's playing was finished the party broke
up. Harold and his host remained out on the back
porch to smoke and chat.

During their talk, which ran chiefly upon political
rather than personal matters, as being the tie which
bound the two men most closely together, the old man
had been revolving a very pretty idea in his head.

His eldest daughter to all appearances was likely to
pursue her path through life unwedded, notwithstand-
ing the fact that her father had as much, if not more
property than any black in Charleston. He was not
ready to part with any portion of it, however, to the
first negro that came along. Here, it seemed to him,
was a chance to make himself popular with his race, by
allying his beloved Basie to a full-blooded black man,
and to have the pleasure of counting such a refined and

HAROLD,

187

intelligent person as Harold one of the family. He
thought with a satisfied grin that the same idea had
occurred to Basie herself in the course of the day.
He had noticed her particularly attentive to his guest,
and more than once he fancied he had detected Har-
old smiling blandly upon her. The fact was, Kurtz's
eldest daughter was lively and talkative, and Harold
.stood in need of the benefit derived from just such
talents. He needed information. This could hardly
be called an understanding, certainly there was little
that was mutual about it ; but old Abel was smitten
with the idea of a possible alliance, and determined
to keep Harold in the house as long as he could be
induced to stay. The more Abel saw of his guest,
the more . he was pleased at the prospect of marrying
him off to one of his daughters.

It was the old man's custom to sit out on th'e porch
with his pipe until the cathedral clock rang midnight.
Harold, therefore, excused himself and went alone
upstairs to his room. Several days passed. The
guest decided to trespass no longer on the hospitality
of his friends. He had studied the city. His great
desire after seeing the city was to visit the habitations
of his race in the country. Indeed, it was to see the
negro of the cabin that he had come South.

But one evening he surprised Emily Kurtz in the
sitting-room looking over the books in the neat walnut
case. He had wanted to know more about this girl,
but it seemed as if she purposely eluded both his gaze
and his society. She was by far the most comely of
Kurtz's daughters. Most negro women are exquis-
itely modelled, and Emily had this physical trait in

188

HAROLD.

perfection. She was even duskier than her two sis-
ters, but her eye was brighter and her black tresses
heavier. But Harold did not think of this. As was
his custom, he spoke very freely to her when he had
first made the girl communicative.

" I should think you would marry," he said, among
other things.

" Never !" returned the girl.

Harold was interested at once in her vehemence.

" Ah, then you intended to at one time VJ

" No ; not since I was a mere child have I had such
an intention."

u You are very strange."

" I am a negress," the girl returned, almost simply
— simply, if it were possible that any one could consider
such an extraordinary reply as partaking of simplicity.

Harold did not notice the look she bent upon him.
He momentarily forgot.

" You could have married the pilot," he persisted.

" Who says so?"

u Your father told me so."

" Yery well. I would have died first."

" Died first ?" Harold stared at the girl in astonish-
ment. " Why ?"

" I am a negress, he is a negro ; but I have stayed
to talk long enough !"

There was a peculiar cast in the girl's eyes as she
spoke, which the young man now noted for the first
time — distress, deceit, or malevolence, he could not
distinguish which. Emily turned to leave the room.
Harold stood before the door with a half-appealing
look in his eyes.

HAROLD.

189

" Pardon me, Miss Kurtz," lie said, quite gently;
" you do not understand me. For a week you have
been a puzzle which I have tried to solve. You must
tell me all. You must, indeed. ' '

The negress sat down again. So did Harold.

" What must I tell you ?" she asked.

" Why, about yourself. Perhaps I can help you.
Perhaps I already understand you. Perhaps I have
suffered like you, but I must be sure. You do not
hate the pilot, do you ?"

" No ; on the contrary, I — "

The black girl seemed to have become greatly
moved since she had seated herself. She who was so
ordinarily passive and silent seemed to thaw into
responsiveness under Harold's glance. Five minutes
ago she answered wearily as one who had been aroused
from a sound sleep. Then her annoyance seemed to
fade, and she nervously chafed her eyelids as if a spec-
tacle had presented itself, the reality of which she
was not so sure. She was now thoroughly awake.
No actress could have done the thing better.

" Well, on the contrary, you — "

u I hate him less than any negro I know."

The word negro jarred on Harold in this instance.
She pronounced it " nigra," after the fashion of all
educated Southerners. It had a contemptuous ring to
it, much as if a white girl had spoken of her adorer
as the American, the German, the Irishman. Why
this sinister emphasis of the man's race over the man's
self ? he thought. But it pleased him to think at
last he was getting at the mystery of this girl's life.

" Wait," he said. " I want you to speak to me

190

HAROLD.

freely. If you wish it, no one shall ever know that
which passes between us.53

A shadow of a haughty smile flickered across the
negress's face.

6 6 1 should never have spoken at all had I thought
otherwise/' she said.

" Have you, then, met with some great grief, some
sorrow because of your race ? Tell me all, as a
brother."

" As a brother ! Were you brother, sister, father,
and mother rolled in one, you could be no more to
me than you are. Do not start!" Harold had in-
voluntarily risen. " I will answer your question. It
is a great relief, after all, to open one's mouth to
something besides trees and rocks and animals. You
ask if I have met with some great sorrow. I sup-
pose it was a sorrow once, but a callus has grown
over it since the first shock. I can explain it sim-
ply. My skin is black, my equals — the only equals
I recognize — refer to me as a ' nigger.' Is not that
enough V '

Harold had intuitively grasped the speaker s mean-
ing before she had uttered the first twelve words. A
pang flashed through his heart as he saw his own life
for five years mirrored up to him. He wondered if
there were any more such sensitive souls who, isolated
by education, had learned to despise their race. Per-
haps the South held thousands such. This thought
sickened him.

" You need not say more," he said, hastily; UI
understand you ; I pity and sympathize with you ;
but have you never thought yourself cowardly in not

HAROLD.

191

fighting such thoughts ? Suppose you had been born
a mere dumb brute ?"

" Ah, well, say rather had been born a man ! I
could have found something to do to better my kind
and reconcile me to it. Perhaps if I had been a
man, though black, I should have transferred my hate
to the white race, as you have done, 5 ?

Harold started and turned pale under his sable skin,
as if a thunderbolt had just struck him. This woman
had just put into words what he had scarce dared put
into thoughts.

" I— I !" he fairly gasped.

" Still I doubt if I should change places with you,"
the negress went on. " With you the shock of your
blood came later in life, and it will not end till it con-
sumes you body and soul. You can never get over
it. An archangel cast down into hell is not likely to
go about doing good deeds forever. That is where
you made your great mistake in not marrying Mildred
Markham. ' '

Harold leaped from his seat this time.

" My God, you must be a sorceress 1 Tell me at
once what you mean by that !"

It was a peculiarity of Kurtz's middle daughter that
she nevor laughed. Sometimes a smile's shadow
illumined her eyes and mouth. It did so now.

" Hush ! my mother upstairs will hear you. To
begin with, I ransacked your trunk."

"You—"

66 Oh, yes ; I read most of your papers and all
your letters when you were out yesterday. To be still
more frank, 1 purposely arranged {his meeting merely

192

HAROLD.

to talk to perhaps the only human being — if we are
human beings, indeed — in the universe who could
understand me. I am convinced of that."

Harold sat down amazed, yet enlightened. His
first impulse was one of indignation, if not disgust ;
but then it occurred to him that nothing Emily might
know concerning his history or plans would injure
him or (from what he now divined) be disseminated.
His next impulse was to say :

" But do you not know when you ransacked my
trunk you were a criminal ?"

" What of that. I knew you and the consequences
also."

" But your conscience— 55

" "What ! Ah, that is the only immunity I have,
Harold Bright — freedom from conscience. I have no
moral nature. Nothing that I can commit, if it be
voluntary, affects me in any way. Fortunately I am
pretty well subdued and not rapacious. Besides, I
should hate to be caught doing anything which would
send me to prison."

" But how do you live ?" Harold mumbled, as if
he had put the question to himself. ci How do you
keep the secret ? Does not everybody despise you ?"

Again the negress half smiled.

" No ; because I live in the world of books; be-
cause I go about all day as if under the influence of
some narcotic ; because I never show myself as you
now see me, nor let myself be heard as you now hear ;
because I do not give them an opportunity. Some
day, if I get too much aroused, I shall try opium as a
venture, The only raason 1 do not have to commit

IIAHOLD.

193

crime, to steal, and even murder, is, because with a
well-to-do parent there is no necessity for it.5'

Harold shuddered. He saw the curse of race in
more glaring colors than he had ever thought possible.
And yet this girl had said that she would not change
places with him. He longed to learn what she knew
about others ; he would have liked to know if she,
like himself, was an exception.

Emily must have divined his thoughts.

" You are wondering," said the girl, " if I am but
one of a hundred other such in Charleston, who carry
around a white man's sensibilities in a black man's
brain. Perhaps they keep their secret as well if not
better than I do mine, but I think there are none
among my acquaintances. It is because they are more
blunted or less choice, or, perhaps, have been led to
read less and look at things differently from what
I have done."

"When Harold arose and left the room, he did so
with a sickening sensation, as of something gnawing
at the vitals of conscience. His whole manhood arose
in revolt at the thought which entered his brain, that
the girl was right ; that, being a leper outside the
pale, she was justitied in freeing herself from Cauca-
sian morality and its attendant obligations. At supper
he ate little, because he was too miserable to eat. Abel
Kurtz never was so jocose. He laughed and talked
clear through the repast. On the back porch, that same
evening, Harold repeated his former decision to bid
his host good-by the next day. Abel made as if he
would not hear of it. He laughed and said he thought
Harold was in a mighty hurry.

194

HAROLD.

" 'Pears to me a downright pity yo5 don't settle
down, Mr. Bright ; reckon you are most too modest
with the women-folks. Now," continued Abel,
puffing at his pipe, " I been a- thinking it all over,
and jes' come to the conclusion you'd make a right
smart husband fer my eldest daughter. I reckon,
Mr. Bright, she thinks a heap of you, and I reckon,
perhaps, you think er heap of each other. Now,"
continued the caterer, even more earnestly, " yo' ought
to live in Charleston, you really ought, an' if — "

It would be hard to say which of the two emotions
Harold tolerated the most, amusement or anger. He
rose from his chair, and going over close to his black
host, shook hands with him gravely.

" Keep your Basie, my dear friend. Let us not
talk any more about it."

" Lord, you engaged ! I done told Betty 1 feared
you were engaged."

Abel's face fell as he saw his hopes shattered into
a million pieces ; but his was a buoyant nature. The
grin came back as he released his hands and looked
up to see his companion's smile.

"Yes," answered Harold, absently; "I am en-
gaged."

And the next day it came to pass that Harold Bright

had packed his few chattels together, and by noon

; was off into the distant rice-fields,
i

CHAPTER XXY1I.

" Ye meD of Athens, hear me !"

Just over the pine-trees of an interminable wood
ascended the white curling smoke of a collection of
fifty cabins. It could scarce be called an opening
where they were, for the huge pines grew close to the
sides of the rude habitations, and it was plain that
with a clearing would come an absence of protection
from the elements. In this part of the State it takes
a good roof (these and such as these out of the ques-
tion) to withstand the rays of the summer sun and the
eternal rain-drops of winter. Three hundred souls
existed in this place, but they were now away in the
fields working for their weekly pittance of a peck of
corn, a few slices of bacon, and a jug of molasses.
It rarely varies, this stipend. Its recipients are not
likely to squander away their substance in riotous
living.

Albeit not all away, for a few aged negresses
moved busily inside the huts, and a bevy of black
pickaninnies gambolled unmeaningly in the sunshine.
It was now November, and there were few enough
dry days in which to play out-of-doors.

Standing in the shadow of the trees, with the light
of afternoon flickering fitfully through' the swaying
pines, was the solitary figure of Harold on horseback.
He had drawn up from the narrow roadside without

196

HAROLD.

making the slightest noise, and stood stock-still while
contemplating the group. If one could read the
thoughts that stirred behind the black mask he wore !

The rider's horse gnawed at the branches of an ad-
jacent shrub. The little black children played on.

" What if I was once like that ?" Perhaps Har-
old's thoughts ran like this : " Yes ; why ask ? I was
once like that. What crime should I not commit in
taking one of these tiny wretches away from his play
and thrusting him into the fetters of a civilization
false to him, false to everybody to whom it owes a being.
If I murdered him, it would be a trifle compared to
this deed, How he and his little playmates wallow
in their self-satisfaction ! All the pleasures and pas-
sions, all the desires and miseries, all the vanities and
tumults — what will he ever tell of these ? Mind is
closed to him unless the humanitarian — his ten times
murderer — wrests from him his bliss and gives him in
return the demon of self -consciousness. We are satis-
fied in our ignorance, and they give us a new set of
susceptibilities, that the torture of our ignominy may
be more exquisitely felt. They hand us our certifi-
cate of freedom and then coolly put us in irons. Oh,
yes ; as for me, I can afford to look down upon these
little brutes. Alas ! nobody is likely to experiment
with them"

As for him,- Harold Bright, declassee, miserable,
leper ; as for him, not now despondent, uneasy, cower-
ing, but fast growing into a vindictive — as for him
(to leave this train of musing), he alighted from his
horse, and deliberately walking to the nearest cabin,
knocked on the door.

HAROLD.

197

It was answered by an old and wizened black
woman, who gave him welcome.

Harold passed two nights in this rude settlement,
among the most primitive of his own race he had ever
seen or known. They all felt that he was superior
to them, but if they had been asked they could hardly
have told why. The negro of the rice-fields has but
two standards of social excellence, white and black.
He was black, as black as they. He went into the
fields and saw them work from dawn almost until it
was too dark to see, and then Harold mounted his
horse and went away again. The mere sight of him
might have harmed these people, if they were not so
trodden down into the sink of solitude and isolation
from the world. As it was, it was merely an epoch
in their lives, to be talked about by them for many a
long day afterward.

The city of Columbia lay fifteen miles away, and
having started at noon, he reached that city, which he
had left three days previously, a little before night-
fall. Harold's stay in the little gloomy capital had
been nearly a repetition of the days he had spent in
Charleston, save that the society pleased him slightly
more. Here he found doctors, lawyers, and even
journalists of his own race. Romulus Sleight, a mulatto
physician, with a fair practice and a reputation for
skill, was his host during his stay at Columbia. But
Harold fancied, as he now rode along, that even he,
successful as he was, like the others, tried to hide his
discontent in politics. It was hate of the white man
that animated him, too. Sleight's own brother had
been shot down by a white mob, and he himself had

198

HAROLD.

received more u warnings" than he could count on
his finger-ends.

" They tell me not to interfere and I shall be let
alone, but I have a right to do it, and I will exercise
the right till they hang me up and riddle me, too.
Simply because I ain't white is no reason why I can't
have my rights."

That was the way he reasoned. He was like a
horde more who were to pay the penalty for this
singularly misguided way of thinking.

Now the shadows were sinking deep over all as
Harold re-entered the city. He thought the streets
looked "unnaturally dark as he wended his way through
them. It occurred to him that the street lamps had
not yet been lit. He had been several days in the
city, but it seemed to him that he had never noticed
it so quiet at this hour. There was absolutely no soul
■upon the streets. The trot of his horse was the only
sound that struck his ear, even as he traversed the
city's main thoroughfare. Strange, he thought.
Harold headed the animal down the inclined avenue
leading to the dwelling of the doctor with a feeling
of mistrust. His strange fears and presentiments were
not altogether groundless.

Half-way down the thoroughfare, a lad he had often
remarked about the house of Romulus Sleight came
dashing along the sidewalk to meet him, crying to
Harold as he did so to stop. Harold drew in his rein,
and in the calmest manner he could assume asked
what was the matter.

" Doctor Sleight— Bob— turn back to de lef !"

HAROLD.

199

gasped the young negro, excitedly. " White man's
mob — I'm sent to tell you."
Qi Amoir

Like a flash his horse was wheeled round, so that
the animal fairly reared on its hind quarters.

" Eape — He never done it— at home all evenin'.
Doctor Sleight wants you to prove — "

Harold caught these words from the excited black
youth as his animal whirled him to the north end of
the town.

Strange noises began to be born on the night
breeze. Harold thought he saw the flashes of many
torches. He urged his steed faster. Soon he dis-
tinguished shouts. Suddenly, without a moment's
warning, he found himself whirled into a great open-
ing packed with people. The hush of death was upon
them. He saw a circle formed, lit up with flaring
torches held by a number of white men. Three of
them held what proved to be a well-dressed young
negro, who was shivering and shaking and making
the most frantic gesticulations. His collar had been
torn off and a fourth white man was adjusting a long
piece of hempen rope. This had been drawn about
the unfortunate man's neck, who struggled like a
demon. The crowd seemed to be absorbed in this
proceeding. Every eye in this vast assemblage, in
which whites and blacks were about evenly divided,
was straining itself to see. When the fatal noose had
been adjusted a mighty yell arose. Above all other
voices was heard that of Sleight, the mulatto doctor.
He shrieked aloud that his son was innocent ; he

200

HAROLD.

svvrore ; he cursed the would-be murderers ; he cried
about for vengeance until a powerful man, with a
brown, stubby beard, grabbed him from behindhand
choked him into silence. Then two others gagged
the boy, all the while pointing ominous-looking shot-
guns and revolvers at those blacks who offered any dis-
position to rescue their friends.

" Gr — d— you, hush your mouth ! Run him up,
boys, the marshal's coming ! Ran him up !"

The powerful man with the stubby beard now ran
to and fro.

u Clear the circle ! Move back ! Every man move
back ! Make a space for the boys ! We'll teach
these to attack our woman. ' '

The crowd gave vent to a horrible, responsive yell.
The negroes on the outskirts looked on, helplessly fas-
cinated.

" Hey there, Tim ! What in Christ's name are
yo' waitin' for ? String him up, why don't yo' string
him?"

A black solitary figure sprang like an apparition into
the midst of the mob. Harold's eyes gleamed fire,
like one inspired. His voice rang out like a trum-
pet.

u Men of Columbia," he thundered, "stop! In
the name of God and justice release that man. He is
innocent — I swear it and can prove it."

The arms of the men holding Robert Sleight fell to
their sides as if paralyzed. The crowd looked at one
another as if in a dream. The tongues of the ring-
leaders clove to the roofs of their mouths. Several
were frozen with superstitious fright. When had

HAROLD.

201

such a negro as this been seen or lieard of before.
Away — away ! this was no negro !

" Men of Columbia,' ' the voice rang out once more,
" I stand ready to answer for that black boy's inno-
cence with my own life ! Bind me now and hang me
instead if you find I lie to you. I can call twenty
witnesses to prove that he was with me on the night
it is charged he did this heinous crime."

" Who the hell is this ?" gasped the chief leader,
in a dazed sort of a way. " See here, young fellow ;
yo' ain't no nigger/'

" No," murmured fifty voices in unison ; " he ain't
no nigger."

But the spirit of vengeance seemed to have flickered
out of the crowd. They marvelled, and they had quit
clamoring for blood.

The big man made a movement toward Harold.
Another held a blazing torch before his face.

" So help me Christ, who are you ?"

A score of deadly weapons menaced the intrepid
black.

"Will you hear me?" he began, just as the man
who questioned reached out his powerful palm and
slapped him violently in the face. A tremor frightful
to see ran the length of Harold's body.

At the same instant the mayor of the city and a party
of men burst through the crowd. In the party wTas
the sheriff. The latter was attired in his shirt and
trousers only.

" Disperse ! disperse !" he shouted. " Every man
of you disperse or suffer the consequences ! The
man that played me this trick will have to answer to

202

HAROLD.

the law. I know you, Joe Troup, and you, too,
Hank Jackson. If you go away peaceably, maybe
this' 11 be the last of it."

The crowd thinned out as by magic. A few negroes
knocked on the head by the butt end of a few revolvers
was all the damage done.

u Sold again, by G — !" called out the powerful
man, and laughed a coarse laugh.

A lot of other citizens who had come up were all
that were left.

u I am sorry this lias occurred," said one of them,
whose silvery hair was cut short and who wore glasses.

The man who had come so near to death was busy
ungagging his father. Harold seemed to have van-
ished into thin air. It is strange how quickly a
crowd can disperse.

" Yes, I, too, am grieved.'* The last speaker was
about thirty years old, and spoke with a Northern
accent. " It begins to look as though the old times
had come back, doesn't it ?"

" How long have you been here, Thorpe ?"

" Eleven years."

" Urn ! then this has only occurred three times in
that period. You know as well as I do why the old
Klan feeling has broke out again. It won't be long
before the Northerners will begin packing their
trunks to go home."

" Or, worse than that, an army of five thousand
United States troops quartered upon us. 1 wonder
if this is likely to occur again soon. I don't believe
the boy was guilty."

" Neither do I. Henry Jones trumped up the

HAROLD.

203

charge because tlie nigger Sleight brought about his
defeat when he ran for sheriff. "

" That's it, eh ? Well, I wish this would not get
to the ears of the North, but that is impossible."

" Ah, Mr. Dixon, it isn't that. It is the way in
which it reaches the ear of the North. Why those
d— d correspondents will garble columns of an inci-
dent, which the people now are sorry for, and which,
you see, has turned out harmless."

" You are right ; but the correspondents say they
must do their duty ; besides, if it wasn't they, it
would be somebody else. I'm mighty sorry it oc-
curred, anyway."

Each of these gentlemen represented the better ele-
ment of the city. They thought most of what the
North would say. It was uppermost in the mind
of this class.

The local newsdealer had his hands full in tele-
graphing for supplies. These little affairs, whether
they had a fatal termination or not, were bread in the
mouth of this personage. By the sensational sheet of
the metropolis the South gauged the North's opinion
of it.

The correspondents were at a loss to find Harold.
It seemed as if the earth had opened and swallowed
him up.

Indeed, the black did little more than bid adieu to
the doctor, his host, and acknowledge the gratitude
showered upon him. Harold took the next train
travelling to westward. Nothing more was needed.
A slap in the face, administered by a white man ! It
was the first time he had ever been smitten.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

" The determination to eliminate the negro as a political and
social factor is complete. It is not disguised, and there is neither
equivocation nor subterfuge. While there are none who would
restore the African to slavery, there are few who believe him lit
for freedom."

Calhoun* Brady was indisputably one of the fore-
most men of the South. His matchless eloquence and
undoubted sincerity won him a hearing from the
North at a time when men were bat little disposed to
listen, when the memory of the Great Conflict, as it
was called, still rankled hotly in their breasts. His
name itself had come to be regarded as a synonym
for the " New South" — a South of commerce, of
industries, of manufacture. Under this new regime,
it was plain that some pronounced character must
stand forth as a type of what was to follow. Calhoun
Brady, Esq., was a silhouette among outlines. His
intellect was not so broad as long, not so distinctive as
it was representative. Men admired his temerity.
They called his philosophy courage. He was the first
to come forward and say, 6i I forget" It was a hard
sentence, but Calhoun Brady mastered it and repeated
it upon every occasion that offered itself. When the
indignities and insults of the period of Reconstruction
were over, he felt himself animated by a thoroughly
native spirit. He said : " I may as well put eenti-

HAROLD,

205

ment in my pocket. Now for business." He saw
that sentiment was not going to rehabilitate the
South, to build its mills and restore its mines and
plantations. His chest swayed, his right arm gesticu-
lated, and his voice rang clear as a clarion, and all the
people, his neighbors, said after him :

66 It is just as well to put sentiment in our pockets.
Now we will proceed to business.'5

Never was nation so shattered and demoralized ;
never did any country recuperate its fortunes more
speedily. People looked at Calhoun Brady, espe-
cially the croakers and huggers of sectionalism, and
wondered if he were not, after all, half right. Some,
indeed, there were who saw something higher in the
motives for which their fathers and brothers fought
and died, and said he was the South 5 s greatest enemy.
Others pointed to the mill chimneys, the prosperous
cities, and busy forges, and said he was her best friend.
It is a paradox. They were both right.

But underneath all this material prosperity men at
the North claimed that the treacherous embers of race
hatred smouldered, capable in a moment of being
fanned into a terrible flame.

Above all things, Harold desired to see this great
man and talk with him. Through him he knew he
could get at the heart of the Southerner, for this man
was never equivocal ; he was not afraid of utterance.
Calhoun Brady was not two-faced. He prided him-
self on his perfect candor and catholicity. He re-
ceived at diverse times many negroes in his house, and
treated them with the utmost consideration. But he
saw at once that Harold was cast in a different intel-

206

HAROLD.

lectual mould from ordinary negroes. His fame, too,
had preceded him. Thus in every respect Bright's
visit to the sage was auspicious.

" To see you, sir," began Harold, " is the motive
of my visit to this city. I wish to ask you something.
Can 1 hope that you will meet me half-way ?"

The other smiled, not unkindly.

" You may," he replied, slowly ; " but first let me
see if I can't divine all your questions."

Calhoun Brady then bit the end off a cigar, lazily
lit it, placed the match carefully in a receptacle, and
continued :

" You are a negro brought up and educated in a
foreign land, unaware of the existence of race prob-
lems and race oppression, or even of race itself. You
come to this country, you remain here— I believe five
years, is it not ? — and finding yourself irrevocably
classed with six millions instead of seventy millions,
or the whole social body, you take up arms at once,
not for yourself, but in defence of the six millions
who are ostracised. You come to me just now, if
I am not mistaken, as a plaintiff nursing a wrong,
expect to ask and be answered. I have too good an
opinion of your intelligence and acquirements not to
plan a different course for us both. We shall reverse
your intended method. I shall — for the first time in
my life, I reckon — state the case of the white man
before a colored jury, because," he added, " I sup-
pose you will print this in your newspaper.

" Let us go back to the beginning arid see how your
ideas of the facts tally with mine.

" Thousands of your ancestors were captured on

HAROLD.

207

the African coast by their own brethren, sold into
slavery, and subsequently transferred to this country.
Other countries would not have them. England would
not receive them at any price, Spain and Portugal had
outgrown them, Brittany murdered them as fast as
they were smuggled on her coast ; but this was a new
country, a vast tract which needed cultivation and set-
tlement. Immigrants would not come out quick
enough, so serfdom was absolutely demanded, as in
all rudimentary states — Greece, Rome, Russia, for ex-
ample. The primary thing to be done, apparently,
was to chain the Indians and put them to work ; but
the Indian, being of a different species from the Afri-
can, would not work ; indeed, he would cheerfully
dash his brains out against a tree-trunk first. The
captured Indian was useless, the captured African
was valuable. The slave trade prospered, and in turn
was abolished ; the country was emancipated from
sterility both in population and soil, but stilly the
slaves remained. An evil unforeseen but inevitable
transpires. The slaves accumulate after the need for
them has past. They are of a separate color and
habit, and can never, like the slaves of Rome and
Russia, blend with the dominant class.

" Slavery happens to be one of those evils the in-
tensity of which is best seen at a distance. Its full
dread form is then best appreciated. At any rate,
the slaves were men, and one part of the country in-
terferes and drags master and man apart. The slave
was a sore in the master's vital part. It kept him
from that inestimable boon, self-dependence. A race
of effeminates was imminent. A man counted not

208

HAKOLD.

his brain, his hands, his gifts, but his slaves. The
South sees all this clearly enough now. The North
acted the physician's part" and cut away the sore, and
the country after a period of sanative quiescence
sprang to its feet, and what do you see ? Why,
look at our mills, our factories, our newspapers ;
look at our homes ; and, in short, our progress in
every department of social, industrial, and literary
life."

Calhoun Brady arose as he said this, smiling and
self-satisfied. He puffed a little at his cigar.

66 Now for your questions. First, yon are going
to ask me if I approve of the suffrage of the ex-slave
being trampled upon — a suffrage that was given him
by order of the national Congress and embodied in an
imperishable Constitution. Why, you ask, is the
black man cheated of his vote ? You ask me to
admit that, if he votes, that vote is never counted
when there is any danger of his securing a majority.
Well, Bright, suppose I admit it, what then ? A man
whose house is burning down and who throws his
chattels out of the window naturally runs a risk of
breakage. The Southern people expect to break
something in order to save their homes and families.
6 But the Constitution ! ' you say. Exactly ; but the
Constitution is not godlier or greater than our fire-
sides. The Constitution was framed to secure the
greatest good to the greatest number. We are the
greatest number. It aims to secure fairness and
equity to all. Then this is a peculiar case ; for if
you give the minority their rights you irretrievably
damn the majority."

HAROLD.

209

Harold had been listening intently and with pa-
tience. He now interrupted by asking :

" Mr. Brady, may I suggest wherein lies the deep
damnation of fairness ?"

Mr. Brady hesitated.

" If you were a Southern nigger," he said, frankly.
" I should not answer you ; but if my answer wounds
your feelings, they are wounded for a third person.
First, then, because the negro is a curse to us. In its
own sphere your race is all right, but not among ours.
To be sure, we brought the slave here, or our fore-
fathers did, and you say we have got to provide for
his descendants. Perhaps we are being justly pun-
ished. But you are above your race mentally. Try
and look at the case fairly from a Caucasiao stand-
point. Does our having to provide for you — suppos-
ing that you were one — mean that we shall take you
into the bosom of our family ; does it even mean that
we shall share with you an equal privilege in that
glorious citizenship which took centuries of civiliza-
tion to establish— you who but yesterday were savages
and may at any moment relapse into barbarism %
Citizenship cannot be held too lightly ; let us see if
you are competent to share that citizenship. Could
you sustain yourself for one moment in competition
with any one of the thirty odd nationalities which
already inhabit this country ? We set apart Liberia
for you, did we not ? and the moment the white man
withdrew his arm your vaunted structure fell away,
and Liberia, which in the hands of any other race
would have been a success, is now little more than a
desert. Tou yourself are a proof of what is possible

210

HAROLD.

to do for the race individually, but — I speak plainly
— do you think my wife and children would not shrink
from you as a companion and intimate, with all your
education and accomplishments ? They would do it
instinctively, just as the horse shrinks from contact
with the camel. You are, to speak more plainly still,
a marvellous piece of art or of mechanism. Nature
furnished the rough clay and man has moulded and
modelled you — "

" I did not come here to be insulted, Mr. Brady,"
said Harold, hotly.

A cold chill was running down his spine as the other
spoke.

" There, excuse me, Bright. I have no wish to
offend your feelings in the least. If I speak too
plainly, it is with the laudable desire of convincing
you that your race is not like yourself — that you are
an exception. Consider the difficulty in the process of
refining six million blacks from birth, and then consider
that even so refined we should still shrink from contact
with them as comrades, and how much more as bed-
fellows. Suppose we permitted your race — ignorant,
bestial, and headstrong — to gain political predomi-
nance. Suppose you elected a negro governor and
legislature of Mississippi or South Carolina (and we
once attempted the experiment), what white man
would obey their laws ? Ton know the white man
better than that. What then ? Anarchy would en-
sue— a total disrespect on the part of the Caucasian
population for law and order, as proceeding from con-
stitutionally qualified officers. There would have to
be a government foe the whites as well as for the

HAROLD.

211

blacks This truth remains at the bottom of all the
race differences in the South ; the two races can not
assimilate socially and will not cohere politically.

" Why, even Nature, the all- wise mother, has pro-
claimed against amalgamation. Mulatto, quadroon,
octoroon, and — stop ! — there Nature has set her seal.
- Thus far,' says Nature, ' shalt thou go and no far-
ther. ' An octoroon and a white are powerless to per-
petuate the breed of a hybrid race. If the white man
and black man must live side by side, it must be as a
separate and distinct race.

" Whatever we do that smacks of injustice to
Northern eyes is done for the best. The North re-
moved the tumor on the civilization of the South,
but left the scarred scab still among us. That is
poor surgery, if good politics. If I might make a*
joke on so grave a subject, I should be inclined to
wonder why the North did not do as every good sur-
geon does, and would have done, place so interesting
a specimen in his Cabinet. But no ; the Republican
Party is too shrewd for that. Votes, but no offices.
They have changed professions since the war, and it
is their opponents who have become the healers.

" But we loved you ; there was a time when the
negro was dear to us. We alone understand your
race."

u Yes," broke in Harold, bitterly ; " you loved us
as you loved your dog ; you loved us as an animal ;
but when we arose and showed that we were men — "

" Exactly. Our love turned to disgust. Well, can
you, who may regard history impartially, wTonder at
it ? It is impossible that we can ever hate the negro.

212

HAEOLD.

The great mistake was in insisting that he should be
placed on a level with us."

" Well, the insistence was successful," said the
other.

" Then your race had better keep its mouth tightly
closed. It has only now to thank its friends and the
eternal law of compensation. The two races can.
never assimilate nor can you ever get us to regard
you as we regard ourselves. It is no use your trying,
Bright, to agitate your race in this country. The
key-note of all your talk and writings is white recog-
nition, and that you will never get as long as the sky
is blue above us and Almighty God fashions animals
and men after their kind."

CHAPTER XXIX.

14 Education will ultimately render a collision between the races
inevitable. " — Ingalls.

After Calhoun Brady's revelations it appeared very
much, then, as if the future, as he had mapped it out,
were a huge blank for Harold. It was only after he
left Brady's presence that the full significance of what
he had just heard burst upon him. He felt that he
had heard and seen enough to convince him that any
further writing and teaching was hypocrisy, rank and
dangerous.

It is true, he had been partially conscious of this
truth for months, but he had hardly expected it to be
preached as the doctrine of the white man. Harold
was too acute and conscientious not to see the mean-
ness and pettiness of attempting to combat this doc-
trine with mere words. He observed, with a very
active eye, the horde of negro preachers and politi-
cians who thus preyed upon the credulity of his race,
and despised them all.

If he had stopped here all might yet have been well ;
but he began to despise himself. The germ of misery
he had borne in his soul for five dreary years took
root and branch, and a great Upas-tree of despair
seemed to extend its noisome foliage over his whole
life. He lay awake on his bed conning over what he

214

HAEOLD.

had heard and proving the truth of every word which
had been uttered respecting himself.

He thought of Emily Kurtz with a shudder. He
saw himself very near that fate, very near indeed.
The only thing that separated him from such a life of
morbid desolation was his manhood. He felt that he
had the use of his right arm. Harold could hate to
a purpose*

CHAPTER XXX.

1 * For it is, in truth, more merciful to extirpate a hundred thou-
sand beings at once, and to fill the void with a well-governed
population, than to misgovern millions through a long succession
of generations."— On Sir William Temple,

On a clear, bright morning early in November the
newsboys were shouting about in the New York
streets like mad. The train on which Harold was
borne back to the metropolis had barely shot under
the depot arches before a train-boy came headlong
through the car with an armful of " extras. " Few
of the passengers, busy as they were in arranging
their exits, could help smiling at the lad's enthusi-
asm— the cry of " extra" was to them so thoroughly
metropolitan. Some of them purchased papers.
Harold was engaged in strapping his valise when the
vendor stopped in front of him.

" I guess you want a paper, don't you ?" he said,
half grinning — " all about the colored massacre down
South."

The other passengers were filing out of the car.
Only one of them turned back and laughed. Har-
old hastily bought a paper. It was a copy of the
Sun. In bold, black letters the head-lines started
thus :

216

HAROLD.

FIFTY NEGKOES KILLED.

A Deliberate Uprising of Whites in South Carolina.
horrible scenes of bloodshed.

General Wade Hamilton Yainly Appeals to the

Mob.

three white men mortally wounded.

The subsequent account was most meagre, but it
bore little evidence of exaggeration. Extras were
being issued rapidly. At the conclusion of the heavily
leaded lines was this sentence :

" Another extra of the Sun, giving the complete
particulars of the massacre, will be ready at 9.30 a.m."

After the first shock Harold read the lines with a
spasm, not of horror, not of indignation, but of tri-
umph. His blood grew rapidly on fire. His eyes
were bloodshot, and he left the train like a drunken
man.

******

An hour later he burst into L'Heureux's office.

" Now, now /" he exclaimed. " What are you
going to do now ?"

L'Heureux was busy reading the account of the
massacre. All the morning papers were spread in
confusion before him. He looked up astonished.

" How d'ye do, Bright," he said, somewhat coldly;
but the other refused his hand.

" Tell me, L'Heureux, what you are going to do,"
he repeated.

" I have wired to a friend at Columbia to send me

HAROLD.

217

all the particulars. You see, Bright, we want the
truth first. I ought to get an answer within an hour.
I shall then send a message to the President, demand-
ing that the section be put immediately under martial
law, and that a million colored citizens at the North
rely upon him to visit justice upon the murderers.
"What more can be done ?"

The other listened impatiently.

" Aren't you going to call a mass-meeting ?"

"What for? It will only incite additional vio-
lence. But stay, I'll see Bartlett at once and arrange
a meeting of sympathy on the day of the funeral."

" And that is all ?" returned Harold, hotly. " In-
cite additional violence ! We want it — we want vio-
lence. Vengeance is what we want and what we will
have. Fifty men have been shot down for no other
reason than their color. We will have a hundred
of their lives as a penalty. They are trying to ex-
terminate us by the shot-gun ! You are a fool,
L'Heureux, if you don't see that. ' The shot-gun is
the only solution of the nigger problem.' A white
man told me that. And you fear violence — you /"

" You are too excited to be rational, Bright," was
the other's only comment.

" Rational or not, I shall do my best to avenge
this horror. You can go your path, I shall go mine.
It is no use depending on the white man. Why, look
here!" Harold fairly shrieked; " look — look at the
paper — the Governor has refused to have the troops
remain out. Blood for blood. Blood for blood, do
you hear me ?"

218

HAROLD.

And he kept his word.

It was Thursday. The low studded ceiling of the
mighty hall seemed to thrill and threaten under the
intensity of the cries. Good, harmless cheering was
left to less earnest assemblages than this — this ocean
of black faces. The negroes were too excited to
merely cheer the speakers. The platform was crowded
with black bono rabies, lawyers, doctors, and preachers.
Speaker after speaker rose and added fuel to the fire.
The hot African rejected calmness. There were no
canny souls to come forward and plead extenuating
circumstances or counsel moderation. If such a one
had come forward now, he would have been fortunate
in not being torn limb from limb, so passionate had
grown the mob.

Fifty fathers and Ir others, even mothers and sisters,
had heen foully murdered ! The white murderers
stalked untouched over their graves J The hlach man
had no rights, not even to turn when trodden upon /
Revenge on the White Pest !

Such was the substance of the evening's anarchy.
All at once a semi-hush fell on the vast throng, and
the tall, active figure of Harold Bright stepped beside
the chairman.

His eyes were frightfully bloodshot and his cheeks
were sunken. Nothing in face or manner suggested
the Harold who had stepped on these shores five years
before. His fingers had a habit of clutching convul-
sively at the desk before him.

66 Brother-slaves !" were his first words. This was
the signal for the mob to go mad. They shrieked and
gesticulated, each man for himself. Three thousand

HAROLD,

219

sets of grinning teeth glistened while the tumult
raged. Outside the hall a captain of police asked
another captain of police whether it would not be
wise to clear the hall.

" Nonsense, " said his fellow-officer, laughing;
" the niggers aren't going to do anything but yell.
They think it's a regular cake-walk."

Harold Bright continued his speech. It was he
who had called the meeting, as chairman of the Afro-
American Citizens' Committee. The mob hung on
his lips.

" We have been passive — so passive ; we have been
obedient ; we have obeyed all the laws the white man
has chosen to make for us ; we have been patient ;
we have been long-suffering and forgiving — have we
not, fellow-slaves ?' '

" Hear, hear !" thundered the sable massa

" But we have been patient, I fear, too long. We
have been passive too long. Now, now is the time
for vengeance P '

It was at this point that fifty of the most ferocious
negroes suddenly left the hall.

The swaying figure on the platform did not pause.

"Hate !" " Eevenge !" " The shot-gun and the
torch !" were some of the words which rose above the
tumult.

" Seven millions of wronged souls cry from the
blood of their fathers and brothers for their rights !
White men, you can't get rid of us ! We will be with
you always — hear that !"

# # * *

Another negro orator arose. Five sentences had

220

HAEOLD.

been uttered, when a flushed mulatto face crushed his
way in from the rear of the rostrum and then stopped,
wedged in by the mass. It was L'Heureux. He
hastily scribbled on a piece of paper, with his hands
held high in air.

" Pass that on to Mr. Bright," he said, hoarsely.
On it was written :

" The police have orders to clear the hall. War-
rants are out for your arrest. You must fly at once.

" L'Heureux."

4f 7S" "X" ^fc

In less than an hour it was known from the Battery
to Harlem that twenty houses owned by Southerners
had been ruthlessly fired and five citizens murdered
in their beds.

CHAPTER XXXI.

" The destruction of error by the potency of truth." — Platform
Anii- Slavery Congress, 1833.

The newspapers the next morning told the story
with varied comment. The whole town was in a
ferment of excitement.

Men went down to their offices armed, and negro em-
ployes in banks, stores, and warehouses were regarded
with horror and suspicion. Hundreds were discharged
on the spot, and made no attempt to seek elsewhere
for employment.

BLACK ANARCHY RAMPANT !
So ran the Herald' }s head-lines :

A Night of Horror Unsurpassed in the City^s

History,

Fire, Murder, and Pillage*

five honored citizens massacred.

Full Account of What Transpired at the Cooper
Union Meeting.

Bright, the Negro Anarchist, said to have escaped.

While All is Quiet at Columbia,

there are Uprisings in Oihe>r Cities,

222

HAROLD.

This told the effect on the public mind. This was
on Friday morning. On Saturday the whole affair was
reviewed ad infinitum in leaders by the newspapers.

" The long-expected has happened/ ' said the Sun.
. . . ' 6 We have long called attention to the growing
vindictiveness of the Northern negro population, and it
is generally understood that the authorities were prop-
erly warned beforehand of the danger of such a meet-
ing as was held in Cooper Union last Thursday night.
The wealth and prominence of the citizens who were
foully assassinated enhances the horror of the occur-
rence. . . . But the question that will continue
to be asked is, why Northern negroes, who are treated
among us with almost fraternal consideration, should
turn to murder and pillage, a course which the negro
of the South shrank *from doing ? Is it that they have
grown stronger and fiercer from close and friendly con-
tact with white men ? ... In Africa, travellers
tell us, the negro is savage and bloodthirsty. During
his period of American slavery he was known to be
docile to a marked degree. Is it possible that he is
now reverting to his original repressed characteris-
tics ?"

" It is idle," observed the Tribune, " for the author-
ities to incarcerate four hundred and fifty of our col-
ored population, under the belief that they have re-
moved all source of further violence. . . . No one
can loathe the frightful crimes that were committed in
this city Thursday night more than does the Tribune ;
but it must not be forgotten that the colored race has
been goadedand maddenedinto reprisal. . . . After
all has been said about the estimable characters of the

HAROLD.

223

dead men, the latter certainly laid themselves open to
violence by their own actions. Three of them publicly
refused, in an interview with different members of the
Southern Society, and printed in the Herald on the
morning of the Cooper Union meeting, fco condemn
the South Carolina assassins. ... Society is
just beginning to reap a fearful harvest out of its
apathy to the question of black men's rights."

The World said : " Following close upon the whole-
sale massacre in the South, the horror of the occurrence
is accentuated. It is impossible that its startling sig-
nificance can be lost. . . . The World has from
time to time printed interviews w7ith leaders of South-
ern sentiment, in which such an outbreak was fore-
shadowed. . . . Several years ago, it will be re-
membered, the chiefs of the Republican Party urged
the negroes to the dagger and torch. Had any por-
tion of the blacks of the South followed this advice,
they would have been exterminated to a man. The
unity of antagonism there is so strong that the white
populace would have arisen and hewn them down
without mercy. . . . But at the North the black
assassin does not seriously endanger or compromise his
race. He himself is in no more danger of communistic
violence than the Italian, Pole, or Chinese criminal.
Consequently the leaders and promoters of Thursday
night's horror chose their ground well. ... A
handful of negroes have merely been discharged from
their employment, and the populace remarks to itself,
6 1 told you so.' "

The foreign editors viewed the episode with min-
gled excitement and self-gratulation. " Long ex-

224

HAROLD.

pected " and " America is reaping the fruits of her
apathy" was the gist of their criticisms.

" Perhaps the terrible occurrences at New York
and in South Carolina," remarked the Times, " will
have the effect of opening the eyes of the Americans
to the gravity of the race question. Laissez-faire
has been their motto too long in this matter. If it
should prompt Congress to immediate action, the five
honored citizens of New York who were so foully
murdered will not have died in vain."

CHAPTER XXX1L

" But when Convention sent his handiwork,

Pens, tongues, feet, hands combined in wild uproar.'*

— Bybon.

Did public opinion, so long and lazily gathering
itself together, turn its eye away from all other ques-
tions and look this in the face ?

Perhaps. It was strange — u damnably strange,"
many said — that people had never come to consider
this an important issue before. You are quite right,
rings of national politicians had agitated it among
themselves, and statesmen had written about it in
fashionable reviews.

But all the efforts of the political tricksters only
succeeded in raising an eccentric cloud of dust, which
pretty effectually blinded the eyes of the masses, who
were to do the business in their own way.

And as for the learned statesmen, why, they wrote
for fashionable reviews, for which the editors of
these fashionable reviews paid — well, not unfashion-
able checks. That was the end of it.

Indeed, for a time it looked as if the black blot on
the national escutcheon were not to be removed, but,
instead, the whole thing were to be circumlocutorily
dodged.

For many weeks after the disappearance of Harold

226

HAKOLD.

Bright, and after the excitement born of the tragedy
had somewhat subsided, solutions of the problem were
in order.

Solving ! Solving ! At the Fifth Avenue clubs, at
the saloons in West Broadway the perpetual solving
went on. It seemed in many cases as if it were the
hopeless task of trying to make black white, and white
black. As if such a thing could ever be done ! Yet
for a time it was quite a la mode.

" But," cried the child, in the old fairy tale, " he
hasn't anything on !"

The child may have been particularly dull — a very
ordinary child — indeed, a remarkably stupid child,
but nonetheless on that account entitled to the credit
of making a highly important discovery. Who knows
what might have happened if all had continued to see
people gallop about naked, because they were told it
was the proper thing to pretend to be clothed ?

When men's powers of reasoning have become
addled with syllogisms, they reason largely from a
formula set by knaves.

And so the Child whose vision was perfectly simple
came to set them right and tell the country that it
was all wrong, that it was being hoodwinked, that He
had nothing on, in* fact. That the attributes and
power and virtues with which he was popularly invested
were all imaginary, hypothetical, and supposititious.

" There is no question about it," said the Child
(who represented a very obscure Congressional dis-
trict, by the way), "he is absolutely bare. Away
with deceit. He has nothing on"

# # * * # *

HAROLD.

Along the well-trod path that led around the mere
at Dubersly and over the wooded summit of the tiny
hill strode a familiar figure. The rays of the dying
sun threw his port into bold relief. A little stouter,
perhaps, but with the same brow. Slightly aged, but
erect. As the sun sunk into its own radiant revery,
the great statesman was pondering over the contents
of a letter which ran in this wise :

" Sir : This, the last human epistle my hand shall
ever pen, I address to you, who are the cause of my
consciousness and the murderer of my happiness.
Not from your lips, but from the world's, have I
learned the history of Inigo Bright' s Experiment ; and
it is on this paper and with this pen that I purpose to
record its irrevocable finale. The hate and horror
with which I regard you is too intense for me to ex-
press in mere words or to cause me to attempt vain
deeds. I have often thought that if I could crush
you in my palm I should be supremely content to
follow you to your grave. But enough of this.
You, the idol of your fellows, the darling of the
nation, can afford, no doubt, to be complacent over
your exploit. I understand from a copy of the Times,
which I found here in Cairo, that yon 6 threw me \rp
when you found me headstrong. ' You washed your
hands of the affair when you found that you could
not mould mind as well as body. That trenches
largely on God's province. Very good. I do not
seek to know your motives. 1 shall be generous
enough, however, to confide in you something that
will, doubtless, interest you. Perhaps you believed

me dead ere this. Did you think that I had dieJ by
my own hand ? I love life too well. Suffering has
made me a philosopher, which your education failed
to do.

" To-morrow is my birthday. I shall be twenty-six
years old. What a capital farce my life has been !
Some modern Ovid ought to make his fortune trans-
posing a new and greater metamorphoses of mortals,
with my portrait as a frontispiece !

Of

HAROLD.

229

fit <^ /f^jfK , $ Jfhu^ff

ft

^w, , . /

(Here the handwriting of this communication grows
exceedingly obscure.)

" Well, I have no grudge against you. I shall for-
get you to-morrow. 1 am going to do what my
brutal fathers ... I call them brutal to-day,
to-morrow I shall approve . . (The rest of

the letter was illegible.)

At the bottom of the leaf was the following, evi-
dently cut with a penknife from a copy of Tennyson's
Poems. Several lines were ingeniously erased :

" There the passions, cramped no longer, shall have scope and
breathing space,
I will take some savage woman : she shall rear my dusky

230

HAROLD.

Iron-jointed, supple-sinewed, they shall dive and they shall
run,

Catch the wild- goat by the hair, twirl their lances in the sun ;
Whistle back the parrot's call and leap the rainbow of the
brooks,

Not with blinded eyesight poring over miserable books.
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, as I go."

THE END.

HAROLD.

The Story of a White Man in a Black Skin,

One cannot read this volume without being instantly
held spell-bound by the uniqueness of the plot, even if
the casual reader does not profit by the conveyed teach-
ings. No similar book of recent years possesses one-
half its interest or its power. Mr. James Clarence Harvey,
writing of it, says :

"We believe there is a future for this book. It is
strikingly realistic, fearless, vigorous and interesting,"
The Atlanta Journal says :

" It treats the subject in a new and startling way."
The Atlanta Constitution says :
" It is the first time that a negro has been exploited as
the cultured hero of a novel. His varied adventures, which
eventually terminate in a dramatic return to Africa, stamp
the book as thoroughly anti-negro in sentiment."
The New York Evening Telegram says :
" It is in point of plot and motive one of the most
remarkable books of the year. . . . Harold is likely to
create a ripple in literary circles both here and abroad.
. . . But about the movements of the black man the author
of 1 Harold' has spun a delightful web of fancy and inter-
spersed his chronicles with deft human touches, which
make the sad figure of the chief personage seem all the
more real and probable. The piece of folk-lore entitled
1 The Story o* Messiah,' appended to one of the chapters,
is a gem in its way."

The New York Press says :
" The new volume is doubtless written for the purpose
of directing popular attention to the immense importance
of the color problem."
The Boston Globe says :
"There are passages in 'Harold' which will com-
mand admiration for their fidelity to certain characters
and events fresh in the public mind."
The Boston Journal says :
"'Rather a startling addition to literature on the race
problem."

HAROLD, 12mo, Paper.

PUBLISHED BY

THE GLOBE PUBLISHING COMPANY,

Frankfort and Jacob Streets, New York.

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how good 99

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So long as the world
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it will always cost a little
more than the poorer.

Sweet Clover Self-Raising Flour is another
Of the best things.

"FPU

THE LEADING

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Published Wednesdays.
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